


Escher

by Scedasticity



Series: Start Again [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, New Game Plus, Sort Of, more characters may be tagged as they appear, not saving Sojiro's nerves at all, saving Wakaba, saving Yusuke's senpai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-03-02 00:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13306770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: Futaba has a weird sense of deja vu, until she doesn't.





	1. Compile Time

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have the sequel to 'The Count of Monte Cristo', and while I don't think reading that is strictly required, it will make a few things clearer.
> 
> The first chapter was written... astonishingly quickly. Please do not use this to predict future wait times.

At the very end of December, shortly after the end of her second term of her first year of middle school, Futaba Isshiki woke up with a weird, undefinable sense of… something. Something was wrong. There was something she was forgetting. But nothing ever came of it, and after a while she let it go. 

January, and someone with atrocious handwriting stuffed a note in their mailbox. It took Futaba a good half hour to decipher it, and then she almost wished she hadn't. 

IF YOU DON'T STOP YOUR RESEARCH SOMEONE WILL KILL YOU FOR IT

She gave the note to her mother, because she could hardly not, but she could have told the note-writer that this would not make her mother research any _less_. This just meant she was really _on to something_.

Wakaba did assure Futaba she'd be very careful, which was… something. And she told Sojiro about the note. 

(This was different.) (Different from what?)

May, and Kana-chan dropped her diary, and Futaba read things she didn't understand and didn't know how to deal with, and— Deja vu. She was feeling deja vu, and she didn't know why. 

June, and she wanted to worry about Kana-chan, but mostly there was an overpowering feeling of _dread_. She stopped asking her mom for things, but started sticking to her like glue at every opportunity. (Like that would help.) (Help with what?)

July, and nothing happened. August, and nothing happened. Her mother got even _more_ preoccupied with work, maybe, but Futaba felt too much _relief_ to complain. It hadn't happened. (What hadn't happened?)

September, October, and the sense of deja vu dissolved into disorientation. Not bad, just… disorienting. Futaba ignored her lack of real-life friends in favor of online ones, and got deeper into hacking, and ignored how the disorientation only got worse. 

November, and conditions at her mother's job got _tense_. She'd come home late or not come home at all. When she _was_ home she'd spend hours on the phone — usually with Sojiro, when Futaba managed to eavesdrop enough to identify anyone. Someone was meddling, and Wakaba wasn't sure how to get rid of them. Someone had a plan for practical tests, and Wakaba found it absolutely unacceptable. Of course she was being careful. 

There was no deja vu at all, but Futaba couldn't help but feel there was no such thing as careful enough. 

Wakaba was — _not good_ about remembering to check in, while she was working. Futaba would complain more, exceeeeept there had been a few times she'd been hacking or even gaming and had ended up similarly oblivious to the outside world, so she had to forgive her mother being 'in the zone'. She couldn't _expect_ her to check in. 

So Futaba bugged her phone. 

She might have expected to feel more nervous at the blatant illegality of bugging the phone of someone doing _secret research_ , but all she got was an increased conviction that she was doing the right thing, and an impulse to bug other things. It was a little odd. 

_"Isshiki, you know as well as I do we aren't going to be able to move forward without taking a few risks."_

_"I'm not saying don't look for a few reliable volunteers, I'm saying that there are rules about human subjects for a reason and their proposal breaks all of them."_

_"Don't be so emotional, Isshiki."_

December, and it didn't get better.

There was no dread, this time, no _certainty_ , no deja vu. Just fear.

* * *

Wakaba brought fried chicken home on Christmas, and stayed long enough to eat it — her first dinner at home in over a week. "And to the successful end of your exams!" she added. "Hopefully you have the English grammar under control this time, not just the vocabulary, hmm?"

" _Mom_ ," Futaba protested. It wasn't _her_ fault her last English teacher was just fine with message board syntax and this one was _not_.

"Just kidding. I'm sure you did fine." She patted Futaba on the head. "Now, if you brought up your Japanese and history scores, too, we'll think about that external processor you were asking about."

Oh, good. That would really come in handy for… some totally legal and aboveboard activities she wouldn't mind telling her mother about. Gaming. Very useful for gaming. "I did. You'll see."

"Now, if you wouldn't mind cleaning this up…" Her mother reached for her laptop bag.

"You're going back in? _Tonight_?"

"Sorry, sweetheart… there are a few extra simulations I want to get done without getting in anyone's way."

Without the _suspicious meddlers_ seeing what she was doing, more like. Futaba groaned instead of whining. "Just… be careful, all right? If you're sure you won't quit your job and run away to Hawaii?"

Her mother laughed, and left for her Important Research Business. 

Futaba went to her room and brought up some brainstorming for Totally Legal Crowdsourced Consumer Protection, but most of her attention was on the feed from the bug in her mother's phone. (Not that she could do anything from here.) (Not that she could do anything there, what was she thinking, that she could use Final—) (What? Final what?)

Travel noise. At least traffic noise was no longer as — nerve-wracking as it had gotten back in summer. (She still wasn't sure why.) Commute commute commute. She wondered if it would be worthwhile to investigate the head of Okumura Food's rumored nervous breakdown ( _too early no wrong thing no why do I even care about this stupid food company and their stupid burgers—_ ). 

From the sound of it, the lab was all but deserted — her mother greeted Ogawa-probably-the-security-guard, and then her footsteps echoed down empty halls, and then there was just a clicking keyboard and Wakaba occasionally speaking out loud to herself. 

_"This again."_

_"Damn politicians wouldn't know an institutional review board if it bit them on the ass."_

The low thrum of some mysterious piece of equipment.

_"Well, at least it hasn't gotten any worse since last time… I'd like to get some of those assholes in here."_

_"But it's not exclusive, that's important."_

_"Better delete that one."_

_"Damn secretive corporate flunkies."_

_"Okay, but do I point them at the Kirijo thing to get them away from the schools, or stonewall them away from any new leads?"_

_"Ah! Sorry, you startled me, I didn't think anyone else was… who are you?"_

In the middle of reaching for another candy cane, Futaba froze. 

_"What are you— Hey!"_ Scuffle. Gasp.

Futaba grabbed her own phone and called Sojiro. Please pick up, please pick up, yes it's almost midnight on Christmas but _please_ pick up—

 _"What is that."_ Her mother's voice was _shaking_. _"What are you— Let go of me!"_ Clatter. 

Please pick up please pick up she really didn't trust the police with this please please (Sojiro always came through when it really mattered)—

"Futaba? It's the middle of the—"

" _Sojiro_ something's happening to Mom, someone else is there—" Clatter. Rustle. Thump. Click. "—You have to help her _now_ , she's at the lab, _please_ —!"

After an eternal few seconds, he swore under his breath. "How do you— Where are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm home, I'm fine, it's _Mom_ , I sort of did something to her phone so I can hear wherever it is, and there was someone else there—"

Clatter. Rustle. Click. Footsteps moving away, and a door. 

"Oh god I think he left he must have— _Hurry_!"

Sojiro swore again. "Damn it, Wakaba… Okay, kid, you stay put. I'll call you back."

A minute later, her bug started indicating Sojiro was trying to call. Only once, but that was okay, because he shouldn't try to make calls while driving. 

When she turned the volume on the bug up all the way, she could hear her mom breathing. She was pretty sure. 

Futaba waited, listening to that definitely-breathing get slower, for _forever_. 

The high volume made the door and running footsteps deafening, even before Sojiro's voice came through and she had to turn it down. _"Wakaba? Wakaba! Damn it—"_ Rustle. Rustle. Dialing noise.

Futaba stuffed her hand in her mouth and bit down.

_"Hello, I have a medical emergency, I need help sent to this address—"_

That meant she was alive, didn't it? It had to mean she was alive.

 _"She's unconscious and won't wake up. She's breathing but her pulse is irregular, and she feels hot to the touch, and—"_ Sojiro stopped, and when he started again his tone was darker. _"And there's an unlabeled packet of pills here."_

The _bastards_. How _dare_ they.

Sojiro decided it would be faster to carry Wakaba, and the probably-relevant pills, out front rather than wait for the paramedics to be let through security. It sounded like the emergency operator tried to talk him out of it but Futaba trusted him to know whether it was safe to move her himself. She just wished he'd picked up her mother's phone, too, so she wasn't left _listening to an empty office_.

Fifteen minutes later Sojiro sent her a message saying her mom was on the way to the hospital. He was going, too, to try to ensure her safety.

Five minutes after that he added that he hadn't found any other evidence of an intruder in the lab.

Ten minutes after that he asked if Wakaba ever brought any work home, and if so he wanted Futaba to get out of the apartment.

"Where would I go?" Futaba muttered. (The cafe didn't exist yet—) (What?) But her mother never did bring work home, so it didn't matter.

She asked Sojiro which hospital, but he wouldn't tell her. Probably didn't want her trying to go there herself. But she didn't want him to come get her, he needed to stay with her mom— And he might not, if he didn't think she was staying put, so _arrrgghhh_. She was stuck.

She considered making coffee, but decided against it. She wasn't very good at it, unlike her mother or Sojiro (or—).

The bug in her mom's phone stopped transmitting when the phone ran out of power. The bug was hell on battery life. No one else had come into the lab to… do whatever.

Futaba _wanted_ to hack something else to make her feel better. Instead, she spent several hours making her whole setup as innocuous as possible. She didn't _purge_ all the files and scripts that might be… eyebrow-raising, but she did hide them in folders full of memes or scans of BL manga. All her extra hardware had gaming stuff on it. Nothing to see here but a nerdy gamer girl, no sir.

The police came by midmorning. One of them informed her that her mother was in the hospital, and her uncle was coming to get her.

The others "searched the house" for "more" of the "designer stimulant" on which Wakaba had "accidentally overdosed". They "found" some hidden in with the coffee beans, and Futaba couldn't restrain herself.

"That wasn't in that cabinet three hours ago—"

One of the police dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder. "It's all right, miss. We don't think you had anything to do with this."

She wanted to argue, but (Akira had been beat to _hell_ when he came back, they'd had to get that doctor—) didn't.

(Who?)

(Akira, of course she knew who Akira was, he was her friend, her key item, her family. He pulled everything together. In a way she couldn't quite remember.)

…Although now that she thought about it she might prefer to take her chances with the cops rather than deal with her uncle. She'd never much liked him, but now… she'd couldn't say what exactly he'd _done_ , but… "Could you tell me how to get to the hospital?" she asked the supposedly-friendly cop, making big, sad eyes. "It might be more convenient for me to meet my uncle there…"

The cops weren't completely heartless, and called her a taxi to go to the correct hospital rather than leave her at her uncle's mercy or send her on the train by herself. Of course they proceeded to pay for it with cash one of them had taken out of the money drawer in the kitchen, but since Futaba might have done that herself if she'd thought of it, she was willing to let them off for that one.

Uncle Yoji, it turned out, had gone to the hospital without bothering to get her. What a surprise.

He glared at Futaba when she walked into the waiting room. "You. She never would have turned to drugs if you weren't such a rotten child — this is your fault!"

Futaba glared at him hatefully, and didn't try to tell him her mother was not abusing drugs. (And not even a note this time to put him on this track—)

But if she'd been more persuasive, smarter, warier, _better_ , could she have stopped this from happening? All her _bad feelings_ , and she couldn't even—

And _fear_ and _guilt_ and _blame_ and _being a witness_ and _oh god her mom_ came together and suddenly there was a cascade of death-Uncle-guilt-Sojiro—Medjed-shutin-tomb-PhantomThieves-Necronomicon-Akira-shutdowns-Shido-Prometheus-Mementos-HolyGrail-failure- _noitcan'tendlikethis_ —

—And Futaba remembered everything.

* * *

A nurse or nurselike person blamed her uncle's yelling for Futaba's sudden freezing in the middle of the waiting room, and ushered her over to a chair, fussing a bit. It barely registered.

Okay. Memories started diverging — almost a year ago? The threatening — no, _warning_ — note in the mailbox hadn't happened, she was sure. Where had that — no, think about that later. A year ago would be three years before they'd — failed. If they'd gotten another chance somehow. But why hadn't she been able to remember, if that was what happened? Why had she had all those — bits and pieces, in the last year? Why _could_ she remember everything now?

Her mother — oh, god — her mother hadn't had a mental shutdown in the summer, even though Futaba hadn't known to do anything to try to stop it, whatever the hell she could even have tried. Instead, they'd tried to kill her now, with no mental shutdown, and fake an accidental overdose instead of a suicide. Why the difference? The only change she could think of _before_ that had been the note in January, and she couldn't see how that would stop a mental shutdown.

And what had been _happening_ with her mother's research, the last six months? Knowing what she knew, Futaba was sure it had to be Shido and his people muscling in on cognitive psience, but what were they even _doing_? What did they want to do with human subjects? And—

Okumura Foods! Something different had happened there, something with reforms, Futaba just hadn't cared enough at the time to find out what it was — was Haru all right—?

Everyone! Had everyone — come back, or was it just her? Did they remember? Wait — had one of _them_ left the note? She was pretty sure even Ryuji had better handwriting than that, though, or they wouldn't have let him out of primary school. In fact she knew he did, she'd seen it while everyone was studying in Leblanc. Everyone had better handwriting than that. Why was she trying to remember people's handwriting.

"This is a confusing and badly designed game," Futaba muttered. The nurselike person did not become less concerned. "I'm fine, I'm fine, go help actual sick people." She couldn't check her phone with someone breathing down her neck.

Her phone had not, unsurprisingly, spontaneously acquired the Metaverse app and/or anyone's contact information in the last twenty minutes. She could _get_ contact information for any of her friends in a matter of minutes, she was quite confident, but what would she do then? What if they didn't remember her? She couldn't approach them cold, especially with an over-the-top story like this!

What if everything was her imagination? No, not everything was her imagination, someone was trying to _murder_ her mother. What if all of this 'memory' was because of one of the crooked cops poisoning her with the mystery stimulant? Without the app—

When Sojiro appeared in the waiting room, Futaba launched herself at him for a hug that was… possibly a little out of character at this point in her arc. But hey, he'd _listened to her_ , that deserved a hug. He didn't seem too thrown by the hug, anyway.

"She's alive, kid," he said gruffly, quietly. "Not waking up, but stable for now. They still aren't sure of all the effects of this — drug."

"They planted some in the apartment," Futaba whispered. Without the memories, she might have hoped Sojiro could fix all this somehow, but…

" _Shit_. Kid— Futaba. Don't… I don't know what's going on yet, but you need to _not_ know about all this. I'm going to have my hands full keeping your mom safe — if they decide you're a loose end, too…"

"I'm not _stupid_ , Sojiro." Futaba let go to free up her arms, and slid a thumb drive out of her laptop bag. "This is from my bug," she whispered, going in for another hug and pressing the drive into his hand. "You can hear someone else there. But he never _said_ anything."

"That's… hell." He rubbed his eyes. "Whoever it was, I'll keep him from getting in here. Then when your mom wakes up, we'll get to the bottom of this."

Hopefully not, or they'd die. "Just keep her safe," Futaba said. "…Thank you for believing me."

"You're something else, kid." He looked past her at her uncle, who was huffing and puffing at a nurse about… something. "Are you going to be okay with him? He seems…"

No. "Yes. He's an idiot but I can handle him." She wasn't _really_ thirteen. No matter what it felt like she knew, factually _knew_ that what happened to her mother had nothing to do with her. "It's — just for a little while, right? Just until she wakes up."

"…Futaba…"

Damn, damn, _damn_. "I saved her," Futaba said, trying not to let her voice crack. "She's going to be _fine_."

Sojiro, fortunately, didn't try to tell her how irrational she was being. "…It may not be just a little while, though."

It might not. How long had it taken Ann's friend to get back on her feet after her coma? And that was just physical injuries, not some mystery drug. And — what if her mother woke up, and they wanted to _prosecute_ over the drug? (They'd _better_ not.) It could be a while before she could go home with Wakaba even in the good endings, was the point. Futaba got that. "I can handle my uncle better than my mom can handle more murder attempts while she's _unconscious_."

He couldn't really argue with that.

Sojiro slipped away, probably back somewhere he wasn't supposed to be that he could watch over her mother from.

A doctor came out to talk to her uncle, finally. A guy in a suit slithered out of the woodwork to join the conversation. He didn't do a very good job of concealing his displeasure when the doctor said Wakaba was stable, and Futaba knew she'd made the right choice, leaving Sojiro with her mother for now.

She could deal with her uncle.

She _could_.

Futaba was a grown-up fifteen-year-old veteran Phantom Thief genius hacker who terrorized corporations everywhere and had the god who stole _fire_ in her head, she could deal with a washed-up asshole businessman who was more interested in money than anything else. She feared nothing less than that… eldritch horror Holy Grail bullshit. Her uncle was _nothing_. She had this.

Forty-five minutes later, on the way to the train station, he grabbed her arm roughly. Futaba shrieked, kicked him in the shins, and bolted into the lengthening shadows.

Totally had this. Right.


	2. Collide

Futaba ran blindly. Initially, she hoped he just wouldn't follow her. It wasn't like he cared about her well-being at all. And the apartment was still there, and probably devoid of evil cops by this time; maybe she could just go stay by herself, and regroup with Sojiro tomorrow. 

The first bellow behind her of "Get back here, you rotten brat!" put paid to _that_ idea. A quick check over her shoulder, and — yeah, he was following her. Her uncle was not a natural sprinter, but neither was Futaba, in the real world. He had longer legs. He'd catch up eventually. Should she give up immediately?

She — honestly didn't know how afraid she should be of her uncle, was the problem. Apart from _not at all_ on account of his being nothing next to Shido. But _practically_ , outside the Metaverse, where he was an adult man and she was a short, skinny little thirteen-year-old with terrible STR — was he going to hurt her, was the question. 

He hadn't _really_ in the old timeline. Shoved her, treated her roughly, denied her resources, endless verbal abuse, but never _hit_ her. Of course, Futaba had never kicked him and run away in the old timeline. She'd been too guilty and depressed and intimidated to stand up to him at all. And he'd been… about to be really violent, that last time in Leblanc. When they'd pushed back. 

Okay, so she should probably be actually scared. Crap. She tried to run faster. 

She was getting a stitch in her side. This never happened in the Metaverse. 

Hide. She needed to hide, she needed a safe room — why didn't navigation work in the real world— She might have known what she was doing in Yongen-Jaya, or near home, or her middle school, but the hospital was in _Shinjuku_ , she didn't know a damn thing about Shinjuku—

And even if she lost him, where could she go? Leblanc didn't exist yet. She didn't have a key to Sojiro's house — if Sojiro even lived in the same place— There was her own apartment, she had a key to that, but her uncle would _find_ her there, and he'd be _mad_ , and—

Futaba looked over her shoulder again — he was gaining — and crashed headlong into someone. Whoever it was had no sense of balance and both of them toppled over into a concrete planter of evergreen bushes, then out the other side onto the sidewalk. Ow. 

She rolled off and started to scramble to her feet — hopefully they wouldn't be angry — and—

Maybe navigation _was_ working. 

"Inari! Hide me! My uncle's going to kill me!"

She felt stupid a moment later. Even assuming Yusuke had come back, too, that was no guarantee he remembered a damn thing. Even if he'd remembered everything, what was she expecting little baby _middle school_ Inari to even do, paint at him? 

Yusuke, still sprawled on the sidewalk, blinked at her twice. Then he pulled an _ancient_ flip phone out of his pocket. He opened it, pressed a button — a _physical_ button, how quaint — what the hell was he doing?

"Speed dial four," Yusuke mumbled, which explained exactly _nothing_ , until he pressed another button and the phone made a weirdly non-antique chime and—

Shinjuku blurred around them, and was replaced with a dark, red-tinted, deserted Shinjuku. 

"Holy shit," Futaba said. 

Yusuke propped himself up on his elbows. "Your uncle?"

Right, she'd never told anyone but Akira about her uncle… "Never mind that, where— Never mind."

Prometheus responded immediately. Location: Mementos Surface. Party member Fox at full health and magic, Persona Kamu Susano-o good to go. No hostiles in the immediate area, but there were Shadows down in the subways, she could tell. 

"Oracle," Yusuke said. "You're here, too?"

"Yeah…" She looked around. "I didn't know you could even get into Mementos on the surface."

"I'm not sure how you would do it with a full version of the app," Yusuke said. "My current phone isn't… a phone with apps."

"A smartphone?" Futaba supplied. Inari was so weird. 

"It showed up as a speed dial entry. If I call it at the atelier, it deposits me in Sensei's Palace — anywhere else, Mementos."

Iiiiiinteresting. "How did you get the app _at all_? My phone doesn't— Wait." She scrambled for her phone, and — _yes_. "Well, I have it now. But I didn't an hour ago."

"That is a long and implausible story." Yusuke got to his feet and brushed himself off, then picked up the sketchpad he'd dropped. Their clothes hadn't changed. "I looked for you last winter. At Leblanc. But it wasn't there."

"Yeah, that'd be because Sojiro didn't quit his old job until, until my mom died, which was last summer, in the old timeline. This time she's alive." And _going_ to stay that way. "I guess considering that someone got into her supposedly secure lab to try to kill her and make it look like an overdose he might quit anyway…" And open Leblanc! She missed Leblanc. Then maybe she and her mom could stay with him while her mom recovered. That would be nice. Good Ending. 

"Will she be all right?" Yusuke asked. 

"She will be _fine_." Okay, maybe that was a little too fierce, Inari jumped a bit. "I won't accept anything else. She's at the hospital, and she's stable, and Sojiro's going to make sure no one else gets a chance to try to kill her."

"That's… 'Good' seems inadequate. I am happy for you, Oracle."

Yeah. Uncle fiasco or not, this timeline was _infinitely_ better, because she was saving her mom. "Thanks. So am I." She took a deep breath, and changed the subject. "About last winter, I'm not sure how much good it would have done if you had found me, because I didn't really remember anything then. Just had a feeling something was wrong. I guess seeing you might have jogged my memory, I don't know. But you remembered enough to look for Leblanc?"

"I… remembered everything then, as far as I know. I woke up one morning, almost a year ago now, and…" He gestured vaguely. "I thought it was a hallucination for a while."

"Huh." Weird. "If you didn't know where I was, I assume you weren't the one to leave a note in our mailbox warning Mom someone would try to kill her over her research?" Also the handwriting had been _so_ terrible.

"No, I did not. Perhaps there is a third person?"

"With the worst handwriting I've ever seen. Maybe if they had both hands in casts—" Oh. Duh. "Or if they were a _cat_. Unfortunately Mona's the one Thief I can't internet up contact info for."

"I wonder if anyone else came back," Yusuke said. "I cannot recall our configuration while we were… fading."

"Damn it, I can't either." Because if she and Yusuke and Morgana had been closest to each other, whatever did this might have just caught them. If not, it seemed more likely to be… to be everyone, right? "They might have come back and not remember. I wish I knew why I didn't until just now!"

Yusuke's expression lightened slightly. "That would explain— I encountered Panther in the fall, briefly, at Kosei's cultural festival. I suppose she was considering other schools before choosing Shuujin. I did not get a chance to approach her, but I am sure she saw me and I am sure she did not recognize me."

Ouch. Futaba cringed. "That must have been _awful_." Rejections from friends must be bad for everyone, but for people like her and Inari who were terrible at making friends— Oh, god, what if _Akira_ didn't recognize her?

"After that I… stopped trying."

"I don't blame you. We'd better figure out how to make people remember everything." Wait. "What did you try before that?"

Yusuke shrugged uncomfortably. "Not… a lot. I looked for Leblanc in January. When I saw Noir's father's name on a list of potential invitees to a show of Sensei's in May, I made sure he was sent two tickets, but neither of them came."

"Sadly that method of contact depended on Noir's father not having his head shoved up his ass."

"…True."

"Well, we'll figure out what made me remember and then find them and make them remember, too. Quest established!"

Yusuke nodded. "And then when we have all remembered, we can find another approach to that… thing. Except—"

"Except what?"

"What was that business about your uncle?"

Oh right that. And her mom, and murder attempts, and… first she'd better explain her uncle. She shuffled her feet. "Well… you see… he's sort of… it's… um… Is there anywhere we can sit down here that isn't vaguely sticky-looking? I want to sit down for this." Okay, that was _blatant_ stalling. 

"I don't generally linger here longer than necessary. It doesn't feel safe."

"It's nasty, but—" But Fox wouldn't be able to detect Shadows until they could see him. "Right. I didn't see any safe zones when I scanned earlier…"

"We can go back to the real world in another location," Yusuke said. "It was getting dark, I was supposed to be getting back anyway."

"Back where?"

"It's — this way." He started walking, and Futaba followed quickly. "The short version of the story is that Sensei did not pay the electrical bill and the electricity is off as of this morning. Also the hot water heater stopped functioning several days ago. In the first timeline one of my senpai borrowed money from his grandmother to pay the bill and engage a repairperson."

Madarame was still a dick, check. "But not this timeline?" At Metaverse speeds, the shiny skyscrapers — rather, the creepy Mementos version of the shiny skyscrapers — fell behind them quickly, and they passed the train station without stopping. 

"In this timeline my other senpai is determined that we not cover any utility bills or similar, as a matter of principle. Therefore, she is working extra hours at her part-time job so as to be able to afford a hotel room for the three of us until Sensei returns from his… spiritual retreat and is motivated to resolve the issue himself."

Futaba looked around the Mementos-street. This was not a _respectable_ part of Shinjuku. "Uh…"

"She washes dishes for a bar," Yusuke said. "It's under the table. Kosei doesn't approve of employment for students, and Sensei wouldn't like it either."

Futaba wondered why. Would it look bad somehow, his apprentices looking concerned with anything but Art? Maybe he was just afraid that pupils with savings were pupils with _options_.

Anyway. "So… we're going…"

"Since the atelier has gotten very cold, my other senpai isn't well, and it's a long time to sit in some restaurant without buying anything, the proprietress of the bar is very kindly allowing us to wait in the back until my senpai finishes her shift. I grew tired of sketching the same things and went looking for something else, and." He shrugged. "You know the rest."

"Well… I'm really, really glad you did."

"…It's good to see you, too."

* * *

Yusuke had to stop once or twice to get his bearings, and once pulled out a piece of paper with what appeared to be a hand-drawn map on it, but he managed to lead them to an alley behind, hopefully, the bar. 

One 'speed dial' later, they were in a still-creepy alley. Some guy gaped at them and bolted.

It was fully dark now. Her uncle would have no idea where she was. Futaba checked her phone — one missed call and voicemail-she-wasn't-going-to-listen-to from her uncle, but nothing from Sojiro, so he probably hadn't been told she'd bolted. Ugh. She did _not_ want to distract him!

Yusuke was making a real call. "Kiyomi-senpai, I'm at the back door— Yes, I know. I lost track of time. I apologize. I — that was _one time_."

Now Futaba really wished she could hear both sides. 

"I — ah. Thank you, Lala-chan." He hung up and turned to Futaba. "The owner is coming to let us in."

"Okay. …Incidentally, _what_ was one time?"

"It's not… I'm not going to tell you."

The door was opened by a heavyset woman with kind eyes. She raised her eyebrows when she saw Futaba. "You made a friend?" 

"Ah — Futaba is an old friend of mine, actually, and—"

Had Inari seriously not considered he'd have to explain her presence? "Yusuke said I could wait here while I — wait for my uncle to calm down. He — I panicked, and he's — going to be really mad I ran away."

The bar owner sighed. "All right, for the evening."

Yusuke led the way to… well, it looked like a small storage room for chairs, but Futaba didn't _think_ that was a normal thing for a bar to have? What did she know. There was an older boy wearing a sick mask asleep on a couple of coats. 

"Hitoshi-senpai is unlikely to wake up if we talk. So… your uncle?"

And she told the whole ugly story. Yusuke already knew somewhat more than she'd expected him to — of _course_ he did, he'd been through her _Palace_ — but nothing about this _specific_ uncle.

"I shouldn't have kicked him," she said finally. "If I could just have kept my head down for a few days, Sojiro would have worked something out — except I don't _want_ to distract him from Mom—"

Yusuke frowned. "I don't know. Considering the amount of distress inflicted by only a few hours in his presence…"

Meaning, would Futaba have been _remotely functional_ if she'd stayed with him. She did not know. Ugh. She was stronger than this.

To distract herself from _that_ cheery line of thought, she told Yusuke about her experiences in this timeline — including the bugging and the murder attempt, though she didn't try to describe how _desperate_ she'd been. 

"So in terms of remembering, it mostly seems like I… got bits and pieces when important things happened? Huh. That's not very useful."

Enough of that. She looked across at Yusuke. "All right, Inari — your turn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future chapters are DEFINITELY not going to be this fast.
> 
>  ~~Informal survey: Do people have opinions on Hifumi Togo's being involved in Yusuke's 'long and implausible story'? What about her ending up with a Persona? I kind of want to, but it would make some things more complicated, so I'm not sure I want to do it if it's not something people are interested in...~~ Decided now, thanks for the input!


	3. Blue Period

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: Discussion of suicide (one of Madarame's pupils as mentioned in canon) and undiagnosed mental illness.

Yusuke considered his options carefully and rationally, and then refused to get out of bed. When Sensei stepped in to ask if he was feeling all right, he pulled his blanket over his head. He did not want to talk to Sensei. This was a bad dream. If the Holy Grail wanted to torment them as they disappeared Yusuke supposed that was its prerogative, but he didn't have to play along. 

"Yusuke-kun?" said someone who wasn't Sensei. "Are you not feeling well?"

That was not a very good way to get him to get up. 

"Yuuuuuusuke-kuuuuun, come on," Hitoshi-senpai said, just like he hadn't been dead for a year and a half. The nerve. "I know you're awake under there."

Best not to do anything to encourage it. 

"Fair warning, I'm taking your blanket in five… four… three… two…" 

The blanket was yanked away _before_ the count reached one, let alone zero, and Yusuke was left blinking up at… Hitoshi-senpai. He looked perfectly normal, not at all like someone who'd jumped in front of a train. 

(Not that Yusuke had seen him, after. Hitoshi-senpai had jumped while Yusuke was at school. He hadn't found out until he got home in the afternoon.)

"You okay?" Hitoshi-senpai asked. "You're kind of pale…"

If he said 'you look like you've seen a ghost', Yusuke would not be responsible for his actions. 

"Well, whatever's wrong, you're only going to feel worse sitting in here in the cold," Hitoshi-senpai went on. "Come on, Kiyomi got the space heater fired up in the studio over an hour ago, weird early riser, and I got us a treat for breakfast!"

…Maybe he would humor the hallucination at least as far as the space heater. "All right."

* * *

Yusuke opened his clothes chest and stared blankly at the middle school uniforms inside for a moment before digging out worn jeans and a paint-stained sweatshirt. Everything was just like he… remembered leaving it the night before. He'd thought about piling clothes on top of the blanket on his futon for extra warmth, but had decided it wasn't cold enough for that to be necessary. 

Funny, that a memory that should be three years old seemed so fresh. 

He didn't bother folding up his futon properly. Hitoshi-senpai's on the other side of the room was even messier.

Yusuke peered out into the hall as carefully as if he were trying to ambush a Shadow. He did not want to talk to Sensei right now, hallucinated or otherwise. Not in sight — he was probably back in his private studio, with his own space heater. Or whatever secret climate controls he had to store all those fake 'Sayuri's without ruining them. 

Hitoshi-senpai's breakfast treat was store-bought American-style toaster pastries. Which he was attempting to toast on the space heater. Yusuke considered going back to bed. 

"There you are," Kiyomi-senpai said. She was sitting by the space heater with a textbook and a notebook. Studying, presumably. Kiyomi-senpai had studied a lot, up until she dropped out of high school (when she left the atelier). "Hitoshi said you weren't feeling well, so I put away all the drawing pencils you left all over the studio last night."

…Yusuke remembered her sending Hitoshi-senpai to make him get up to clean up the mess, but that was the real version, when he hadn't woken up with a shout, then retreated under his blankets and lain in bed for an extra hour refusing to acknowledge anyone. "…Thank you, senpai."

"I think these are almost ready," Hitoshi-senpai said. "Sit down, Yusuke-kun."

Yusuke sat, and numbly accepted a space heater pastry.

This was all a little… non-surreal to be a hallucination. No spines or giant veins anywhere. The space heater toaster pastries might have counted as surreal, except he remembered that part actually happening. Hitoshi-senpai could _get_ a little surreal sometimes. Inspired, Sensei had always called it.

"You really don't look very good," Hitoshi-senpai said critically. "Hey, Kiyomi, how's the slush fund looking?"

"A lot smaller than it was before we splurged on the wedding present for Ayane-senpai," Kiyomi-senpai replied. 

(Ayane-senpai had left the art world to get married less than a month before this. Or, more likely, Ayane-senpai had gotten married to leave Sensei, which then meant she had to leave the art world. None of them had gone to the small wedding, but Hitoshi-senpai had insisted the four remaining students — the three who lived at the atelier plus Natsuhiko-senpai — needed to send Ayane-senpai a wedding gift of some good art supplies so she would know she didn't need to leave _art_ behind. Good art supplies were not cheap.)

"Not to mention all the fried chicken last week," Kiyomi-senpai continued. "And the _osechi_ , which incidentally had _better_ still be in the fridge when it's actually New Year."

Ah, yes, unlike the 'end of exams' cake which had vanished before Kiyomi-senpai was even halfway through her end-of-term exams. It had been Yusuke. Hitoshi-senpai had covered for him.

Hitoshi-senpai frowned. "I thought Sensei paid for _osechi_ this year."

"Sensei said he _wanted_ to pay for the _osechi_." There were deserts less dry than Kiyomi-senpai's voice. "He never said he would."

"Right…" Hitoshi-senpai sighed.

"But if Yusuke-kun really needs a doctor… I think… I'm pretty sure Sensei would cover that."

"I don't need a doctor," Yusuke said quickly. Sensei probably would cover it. He'd also find a way to make them feel bad about asking.

"You sure?" Kiyomi-senpai asked. "Even if he… doesn't have the cash handy, if it's really an emergency…"

"It's not an _emergency_ at all, senpai. I just… had a bad dream."

"Must've been pretty bad," Hitoshi-senpai said, before eating the last space heater pastry.

Oh, why not. "Kiyomi-senpai had gone back to her family in Iwate," Yusuke said flatly.

"That's bad, all right—"

"And you were dead," Yusuke continued before they could start with _that_ joke. "You — were hit by a train. Sensei had been arrested. Then a giant evil golden cup took over everyone's cognition and Tokyo merged with the skeleton and innards of some nameless cosmic beast."

Hitoshi-senpai blinked. "Uh."

"It killed all of us," Yusuke went on calmly. "And I'm still not sure if that was the dream or is I'm dreaming now while it's killing us."

"…I'll check and see what the clinic hours are," Kiyomi-senpai said.

"What? No—"

* * *

It was afternoon before Yusuke escaped the clinic, bearing a tentative diagnosis of leftover exam stress and possibly mild food poisoning from expired egg salad sandwiches, and a recommendation to rest, and not overdo anything on New Years. On the way back to the atelier, Kiyomi-senpai explained at some length that Yusuke was old enough to examine his own food for fitness to eat. Then she switched to Hitoshi-senpai, and questioned why they'd had _so many_ convenience store sandwiches that they didn't get eaten before they expired. Hitoshi-senpai claimed there had been a sale.

Most of the trip, though, Hitoshi-senpai watched Yusuke with narrowed eyes.

Maybe he'd noticed that Yusuke had copied his 'hello medical professional I am a sane and well-adjusted individual whose observed odd behavior requires no further investigation' routine wholesale. Which would be particularly puzzling for him as Yusuke hadn't yet seen Hitoshi-senpai pretending to be fine for a doctor.

At any rate.

It was becoming clear that… whatever this was, it wasn't going to clear up _quickly_. If he didn't play along, it was going to be _annoying_. And whatever it was, it wasn't just a memory replay, because the clinic visit had not happened.

It was also becoming clear… well. Not _clear_ at all. But…

Other pupils had always come and gone, and except for when Yusuke was very young, he had tried not to get too attached to them. They had things to do which he would only distract them from, and even if they made time, sooner or later they'd be gone. Less painful to hold them at a distance from the start. He inevitably got to know any of them who stayed in the atelier, but — not too close.

Kiyomi-senpai would have been fine with that. She had _drive_ , and _discipline_ , and reportedly more family than she knew what to do with already. Some women had a mothering instinct; Kiyomi-senpai had to work hard to muster up a sisterly instinct, and she liked it that way.

Hitoshi-senpai, though. Hitoshi-senpai had wanted them to be family, and he was such a — _bright_ person, some of the time, it just seemed to make sense when he said it. And then they'd got into the habit and carried on even in Hitoshi-senpai's not-bright periods.

Back in the atelier, Yusuke sat by the space heater with a cup of tea and watched, and remembered.

Kiyomi-senpai was working in acrylic, depicting a colorful shape made up of many intersecting lines hovering in a featureless void. It was one of a series. Kiyomi-senpai had called them stars; Sensei had sold them as 'Sea Urchin' one through… he forgot how many they were. She'd sulked for days when she found out he changed the name. After four days, Hitoshi-senpai had bought some cheap sea urchin sashimi to tease her. She'd thrown a piece of it at him and nailed him right between the eyes, then been mortified at herself, apologized profusely, and taken his turn cleaning the kitchen. Sea urchin was still banned from the grocery list indefinitely, though.

Hitoshi-senpai was working on a series, too — watercolor scenes of famous sites in Tokyo. Sensei liked those, they sold well, and Hitoshi-senpai could keep turning them out even when he was having an emphatically non-inspired month, but they weren't very exciting. Also Hitoshi-senpai could never think of a famous site when he tried to, so Yusuke and Kiyomi-senpai had taken to suggesting famous sites and photographing them for him with a disposable camera. Then they'd started suggesting and photographing considerably _less_ famous sites, such as the dumpster behind Yusuke's middle school and Hitoshi-sempai's notably untidy work area.

It hadn't been bad, for a while. They'd been like a family, for a while. And then it was bad, and they were like a family that fell apart.

_"I thought you were going to stick it out at least long enough to get into university? …Where will you go?"_

_"I'm going to go crawling back to my grandparents and say they were right, there's no future in art, will they pretty please help me get my life back on track. They'll do it. I won't stop hearing 'I told you so's for the next decade, but they'll do it. I don't want to stuff myself back in that box, but… Hitoshi, you should get out, too. Yusuke-kun is more resilient than either of us, and Nakanohara can go to hell, but— Go home."_

_"Ah, after all the time and money they poured into sending me to Tokyo? I can't give up like that! It'd be shameful! Besides, he's still just a kid, I can't leave him on his own…"_

Kiyomi-senpai had left in September. _After_ term started. Yusuke didn't know why _then_. She'd tried to get Hitoshi-senpai to leave, too, but he wouldn't.

Yusuke was fairly sure it was some time that fall that Hitoshi-senpai started drinking. When he'd tentatively mentioned it to Sensei, Sensei had said that many people used alcohol to deal with stress! And Hitoshi was very grown up for his age, and Sensei trusted him to know his own limits.

In mid-January Hitoshi-senpai drank a very large amount of hard liquor, and Yusuke found him unconscious in the bathroom, surrounded by every bottle of over-the-counter painkiller they had, childproof caps still in place. He'd called an ambulance. Sensei had told anyone who asked that Hitoshi-senpai had slipped in the shower and hit his head — for Hitoshi's sake, he explained to Yusuke.

The doctors knew otherwise, of course. But Hitoshi-senpai had smiled at them, and ducked his head sheepishly, and said how _stupid_ he felt for playing a drinking game alone and putting everyone to all this trouble, and giving his poor kouhai such a shock… Sensei was making sure he wouldn't have trouble with the school over this, he was _so_ grateful, and he would _never_ do anything like this again. 'Hello medical professional I am a sane and well-adjusted individual whose observed odd behavior requires no further investigation.'

He _had_ stopped drinking, though. And he'd sincerely apologized to Yusuke for putting him in that position. He'd thrown himself into painting with a passion he hadn't shown in months, and produced one of the best pieces he'd ever done (a small dark figure wrapped in broken chains standing in a beautiful field of light, but that description did not do it justice), and Yusuke had thought it would be all right.

Hitoshi-senpai had helped him prepare for high school. He'd been more excited about it than Yusuke was. He'd bought Yusuke a smartphone as a congratulatory gift.

_"You're going to do well there, Yusuke-kun. I'm sure of it."_

And then halfway through April he'd killed himself.

His last painting had appeared in one of Sensei's shows a month later, with a few additional strokes blurring the chains to unrecognizability, entitled 'Intruder in Paradise'. Hitoshi-senpai had called it 'Journey's End'.

Maybe… If this wasn't a hallucination — even if this was going to be a _long-lasting_ hallucination — and he could change things. Maybe he could save Hitoshi-senpai.

* * *

Step One was to keep Kiyomi-senpai from leaving — she had more influence over Hitoshi-senpai than Yusuke did. This would be easier if he knew why she left. It wasn't like he could ask her _now_.

So he kept — playing along. He didn't touch the _osechi_ before New Year this time, even though he doubted a few filched fishcakes had anything to do with a departure eight and a half months later. Middle school was… middle school. He continued to polish his sketching techniques. Most of the results weren't very interesting, but there was one study of a stack of bentos that Sensei thought was good enough to "see a wider circulation" — i.e. be sold somewhere under Madarame's name. 

The funny thing was that a sketch of the same subject — but not an identical sketch — had been appropriated last time. He'd felt very conflicted about that, then. It was always gratifying to be _good enough_ for Sensei to accept your work, but… it meant it wasn't your work anymore. This time, he just wondered how much someone would unknowingly pay for _a middle school student's drawing of a pile of lunchboxes_ , as a Madarame Original.

Even when he wasn't stealing artwork, dealing with Sensei was the worst.

The first few nights he had dreamed about the depths of Mementos, but after that it switched almost entirely to vivid dreams of Sensei's Palace. The portraits with their dull eyes and blurring edges. The tawdriness. The _smugness_. That — horrific _statue_. _Multiple_ statues. Lasers. Paintings that were doors. So many portraits. Sensei's Shadow.

( _"I could obtain her painting without any strings attached!"_ )

He tried to pretend everything was normal. He was used to pretending everything was normal, after anything un-ignorable had passed and could be swept under the rug. He wasn't sure how well it was working. Were people paying closer attention to him, this time? Had Kiyomi-senpai asked about his day _every day_ last time? Had his homeroom teacher asked if he was having trouble sleeping?

(He wasn't having trouble sleeping, it was all the feelings that sleeping _left_ him with that were the problem. The dreams weren't getting better.)

( _"The price for your insolence will be death!"_ )

Yusuke tried to pay closer attention to what his senpai were doing. Hitoshi-senpai's grandmother sent him money for New Year, and Hitoshi-senpai was touched but not happy about it. She already sent him money every month, which he didn't think she could properly afford, but he couldn't tell her he didn't need it because he _did_ — it was a crucial contribution to the slush fund. Kiyomi-senpai's various family members sent her several passive-aggressive greeting cards, one of which she tore into pieces and flushed down the toilet while muttering under her breath. She got money from her family sometimes, too, but much more irregularly.

( _"Plucking talented, yet troubled artists allows me to find promising pupils and take their ideas… After all, it's much easier to steal the futures of children who can't fight back."_ )

Both of them were very aware that Sensei was using them and that he wasn't completely honest with them, but Yusuke was pretty sure they didn't really grasp the _depths_ of the deception. Either way, though, they seemed to think it was this, or get out of art.

( _"Do you believe anyone could find success with my objection holding them down?"_ )

Hitoshi-senpai hit a notably inspired period in March and tried to stay up all night painting giant koi, the same as last time. Kiyomi-senpai made him go to bed, the same as last time. This time, Yusuke was paying enough attention to know she also gave him the maximum safe dose of an allergy medicine every night for two weeks, and tried unsuccessfully to get him to see a doctor.

Shortly after the start of the new school year, Sensei joined them in the kitchen for breakfast. He asked how Yusuke was liking his third year of middle school so far, and apologized for not being able to afford a proper cram school. "But don't worry — my recommendation will get you into Kosei — or any other art school — with no trouble."

( _"My usual ragged attire is nothing but an act!"_ )

"Thank you, Sensei," Yusuke replied, the same way he would have before. 

"Now, Yusuke, you said you wanted to do some more life drawing, right?" Sensei continued. 

He _had_ said something like that at some point, he was fairly sure. And now that he thought about it, he had worked on that a lot this spring— "Sensei?"

"I had an idea that would make that much easier," Sensei said. 

Had he been eager? He'd probably been eager. "Yes, Sensei?"

"Since Kiyomi-kun has to study for university entrance exams this year, she's going to have less time to paint anyway. So, while she is reading, you can draw her! Soon it will be warm enough in the atelier."

Hitoshi-senpai apparently inhaled his porridge and started coughing. 

"I— _Sensei_!" Kiyomi-senpai spluttered. "I— You want me to _study nude_?"

"What? Oh, no, of course not — underthings, my girl, underthings." He smiled benignly. "It would be the most efficient way to do things, and so helpful for Yusuke-kun."

( _"Livestock are killed for their hide and meat!"_ )

"I — what? I—"

"Wouldn't it, Yusuke-kun?"

Yusuke had agreed, before. He'd seconded the request. He'd _implored_. He'd offered to help with her studying, as if he'd actually be any use. She'd agreed in the end. 

He'd used more _whining_ than when he'd been trying to get Ann to model, two years later. 

It had taken him a while to really understand how upset Ann had been by the whole thing. He still wasn't sure he properly understood why, but he got _how_. 

"No thank you, Sensei, Kiyomi-senpai. I'm sure Kosei will have life drawing classes. I can wait."

"Oh?" Sensei didn't seem displeased, really, just mildly surprised. 

" _Thank_ you," Kiyomi-senpai said.

Sensei gave her an indulgent smile before turning back to Yusuke. "What _do_ you want to take on next, then?"

"I think…" He envisioned the Palace again. "I want to paint a self-portrait."

* * *

He couldn't tell if it helped. It would have been easier if he remembered how Kiyomi-senpai had acted the first time. 

It had probably been the right thing to do, at least.

* * *

Haru didn't come to the show her father had been sent tickets to. Neither did her father, so it didn't necessarily mean (she didn't remember. Mean this was all in his head. Mean he didn't matter) anything.

* * *

The self-portrait _did_ help with Yusuke's tension level. He poured everything he couldn't say to Sensei onto the large canvas. He adjusted his schedule so he could paint a little in the morning after getting up every day, and it exorcised the nightmares enough that they wouldn't _haunt_ him for a while. He stopped hearing Sensei's Shadow echoing in every conversation.

"That's… coming along really well, Yusuke-kun," Hitoshi-senpai said in June, when Yusuke finally allowed the others to see the painting in progress. "So it's a painting of a painting of you?"

"I call it 'Self-Portrait As A Cognition'," Yusuke said.

"It's really… It's going to be very powerful, I think." Hitoshi-senpai tilted his head to the side. "What sort of paint are you using to get that effect?"

"Just oils, senpai. What effect?"

"The sort of…" Hitoshi-senpai gestured vaguely. "It almost looks like it's… it must be an iridescence effect, I guess. But I'm very impressed."

Sensei looked at the painting-in-progress, squinted, murmured, "Coming along very well," and left.

Two weeks later, it was Kiyomi-senpai tilting her head to the side. "I almost want to say you're doing something really interesting with perspective, but there isn't enough depth here to be doing perspective, so that doesn't make sense…" She stepped back and closed one eye. "No, I am getting an impression of depth. That's a neat technique, maybe you can show me sometime."

Yusuke hadn't thought he was using any particular technique. But it was nice to have his work appreciated.

Sensei looked at the painting and then away again, quickly. "Fine use of colors, my boy."

In fact Sensei generally seemed to avoid looking at the painting too long.

"I don't think Sensei likes it," Yusuke told Kiyomi-senpai in late July.

"I think it creeps Sensei out," she replied. "I can't entirely blame him… that depth trick is weird, and Hitoshi's right, it _does_ almost look like it's moving from some angles. But it's good work, Yusuke-kun."

"It is starting to convey what I want it to," Yusuke conceded. "I may be working on it right up until it is sold, however."

"First he'll have to come up with an alternate title," Kiyomi-senpai said. "And come up with a reason for painting a student as a painting. It seems less strange an idea as a self-portrait."

But Sensei did not rename the painting, or sell the painting. "It's… clearly very personal for you, Yusuke," he said in August. "I think you should keep it. Maybe in your room, where it won't be in the way."

"I… guess it's possible to be too unnerving to plagiarize?" Hitoshi-senpai wondered later. "Should I start painting ghosts or something?"

"Unless you can paint ghosts that feel like they're watching you from other rooms of the building, I wouldn't bother," Kiyomi-senpai told him.

Yusuke blinked. "You feel like it's watching you?" There was a good way to make her leave.

"Not at all," Kiyomi-senpai said hastily. "That would be silly."

"Not _watching_ exactly," Hitoshi-senpai said. "You can just… sort of tell it's there?"

"That's also silly," Kiyomi-senpai said. "It's… just a very powerful piece."

Yusuke still wasn't sure what they were talking about. "I still want to touch it up a little more."

"Well, I'm _just_ fine with delaying moving it into our room a while longer," Hitoshi-senpai said.

"I don't mind it being in the studio," Kiyomi-senpai said. "Having your self-portrait in your own room would be a little strange anyway."

* * *

_Self-Portrait As A Cognition_ did indeed stay in the apprentices' studio, even when Yusuke had to admit it was mostly done and start something else. In the interest of continuing to vent his Palace dreams, he got a smaller canvas and started trying to replicate the unique appearance of the walls of the treasure hall. This one didn't seem to bother the senpai at all, though they continued to comment on the unusual techniques he wasn't actually using, but Sensei still seemed… slightly unsettled by it. It also wasn't as effective an exorcism as the self-portrait, but it still let him start school again without seeing his nightmares. 

( _"Foolish child. You still don't see?"_ )

At least not very much.

More importantly, Kiyomi-senpai didn't leave! She had a fight with Natsuhiko-senpai in the middle of the month about whether his painting of irregular polygons was a blatant ripoff of the painting of irregular polygons she'd done back in spring. Even after admitting inspiration, Natsuhiko-senpai insisted his was a superior execution of the concept.

Yusuke didn't remember the fight happening last time, so he wasn't sure whether it had any relation to Kiyomi-senpai leaving. She didn't this time, was the important thing.

* * *

Hitoshi-senpai didn't start drinking in the fall, but he did get… un-inspired. Which… should probably properly be called depressed. Natsuhiko-senpai leaving in October, right on schedule, didn't improve things any.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Yusuke asked Kiyomi-senpai.

"Can you make him see a doctor?" she asked.

"I doubt it."

"Yeah, I can't either." She sighed. "Get him to go outside when you can. Remind him when you know he has stuff he needs to do. _Don't_ leave him alone with Sensei too long, he'll start talking about _expectations_ and that always makes things worse."

"All right," Yusuke said. "If… Let me know. If there's anything else I can do."

"I'll keep it in mind."

She didn't come up with any more ways to help Hitoshi-senpai, but she did start trying to teach Yusuke about how they budgeted the slush fund. He tried very hard not to run away screaming, and was rewarded with the information that Kiyomi-senpai had a rule-violating part-time job, and that her family members sometimes sent her money depending almost entirely on how spiteful they were currently feeling towards her grandparents.

* * *

Yusuke considered just not going to Kosei's cultural festival this time. There had been very little question where he would go the first time, and now there was none, barring something going catastrophically wrong in the next five months. Besides, he thought it might be worth a try, just going by Shuujin's. Makoto and Haru _should_ both be there. 

But Kiyomi-senpai had a piece in the senior art show — a metal sculpture she was apparently extremely pleased with. And Hitoshi-senpai had more or less sleepwalked through the festival last time, but this time he was — not quite enthusiastic, but at least _engaged_ in whatever it was his class was doing. He refused to say, but urged them both to come. 

Plus, Sensei was going to go — either for appearances' sake or because he was genuinely curious about what Hitoshi-senpai's class had done. 

Or — no, he'd gone last time. Yusuke had seen him talking to a couple of third-years whose works in the senior show he'd praised. He'd wondered if Sensei was looking for new pupils, but had forgotten about it when there weren't any. Maybe they'd had concerns about Kiyomi-senpai leaving so abruptly. 

Well, he probably didn't need to worry about that, in any event. So. He'd go long enough to see his senpai's contributions and make a show of looking around, and then he'd see if he could slip away to Shuujin.

* * *

"It's a saint cafe," Hitoshi-senpai said. "It's like a maid cafe. Except with saints."

"Er," said Sensei. "That's very… uh…"

"I did the faux-stained glass decorations," Hitoshi-senpai added. "They could have been better with a little more time, but I think they turned out fairly well."

"Ah… Yes, Hitoshi-kun, they're very nice," Sensei said, on surer ground now. "So… this is why you asked if you could have that old kimono, then…?"

Yusuke was ninety percent sure this was not what Hitoshi-senpai's class did the first time. The ten percent was because he couldn't remember what they _had_ done, but surely he would have remembered _this_.

Kiyomi-senpai had a hand over her face. "Your entire class is _dead_."

"No, only about a third of us are martyrs, and we voted not to let anyone dress up as their corpse."

"You're all _about_ to be martyrs for your own sense of humor."

"No one at the school is _that_ high-strung about this."

"And who are you meant to be?" Yusuke ventured warily. Most of the class seemed, like Hitoshi-senpai, to be wearing old white, brown, or tan yukata or kimono, though a few were in more elaborate old-fashioned European clothes. 

"I'm Saint Luke, patron saint of artists," Hitoshi-senpai said. "I won the draw, several people wanted him."

"Well, I see why you wanted us to come here first," Kiyomi-senpai said. "They are going to shut this down early, wait and see."

"Bet they won't."

Kiyomi crossed her arms. "Bet what?"

"If it's been shut down by the time you go see your sculpture and come back, I'll teach Yusuke-kun to cook."

"What?" Yusuke said. 

"But if it hasn't been, _you_ teach Yusuke-kun to do laundry."

"Why are both forfeits about me? And I know how to do laundry," Yusuke said. It had been a steep learning curve, the month after Hitoshi-senpai's death. He'd had to replace a school uniform. 

"You do?" Hitoshi-senpai said. "That's wonderful, you can have a turn at doing it. Want to start next week?"

"You'll have to demonstrate competence first," Kiyomi-senpai told him. "Anyway, Hitoshi, our cooking is equally mediocre and unenthusiastic — if you win _I'll_ teach Yusuke to cook. Or at least to feed himself."

"I still have not agreed to this!"

"Sawa— I mean, Saint Luke-kun!" A girl hurried up. "I need you to intercept Saint Bartholomew before he talks to any guests. Word is he brought the fake skin after all—"

"Oh _no_. Sensei, Kiyomi, Yusuke-kun — I'd better go. Enjoy the senior show! Oh, and when you come back, and the cafe _is_ still running, the Agatha cakes are fine to eat, but _don't_ ask any questions about them."

There were many fine pieces at the senior show, though not all of them particularly spoke to Yusuke. Kiyomi-senpai's looked much like a three-dimensional, metal version of her definitely-not-sea urchin paintings. It didn't look like there was any safe way to pick it up. (When he remarked on this, Kiyomi-senpai winced. "Just don't mention tetanus shots, please.") It was called 'Wall of Thorns', and it was going to take more thought to unpack all of its meanings. 

Kiyomi-senpai wanted to talk to some of her classmates, and Sensei wanted to nose around other promising artists. Yusuke excused himself, and promised to see them at the atelier later.

He decided to get something to eat before leaving for Shuujin. The saint cafe was not only still open but very busy when he came back. A boy who introduced himself as the patron saint of plumbers and clowns seated him at an already crowded table and told him Saint Martha would be with him shortly.

"They do seem to have done research for this," said the girl whose elbow room he'd been seated in. "Are you a prospective student?"

Oh, they were making conversation now? "Ah, yes. And my senpai is in this class." Introductions. Right. "My name is Yusuke Kitagawa." Something caught his eye over by the cafe entrance — a flash of… yellow?

"Hifumi Togo. I'm a prospective student also."

Why did that sound familiar? Oh, of course. "Ah, the shogi player."

She perked up a little. "You've heard of me?"

Not yellow, _blond_ , in pigtails — was that—? "Yes… I was very sorry to hear about what your mother was doing with the fixing and the idol aspiration business, it was an outrage." That had to be Ann.

" _What_ —"

"Excuse me, I see someone I know." It looked like Ann was writing off the saint cafe as too crowded. Yusuke clambered to his feet and picked his way across the cafe as fast as he could. Should he call out? Just try to catch up? Would she know him?

" _You can't just say that and run off—_ "

He caught up with Ann just past Class 1-B's 'Horn Salon', inside which students were playing horns. Some of them might know what they were doing? All of them were very loud. Fortunately a lot of them needed to take frequent breaks.

Yusuke slid to a stop before he could run into a student carrying a tuba, only to get knocked against the wall by the tuba anyway.

"Sorry!" said the tuba-carrier, but staggered into the 'salon' without stopping.

"Are you okay?" asked the girl with Ann. He'd only seen one picture of Shiho Suzui, but this was her.

"I'm — fine," he said. Ann was looking at him with nothing but mild concern and slight amusement, at appropriate levels for witnessing a tuba-related collision. "I apologize, your friend seems very familiar, could we have met before somewhere—?"

Ann frowned at him suspiciously, no recognition in her eyes. "I don't think so."

Before any of them said anything else, the Horn Salon came off break, and then none of them could say anything else. Yusuke bowed stiffly, and retreated.

It no longer seemed like a good idea to go by Shuujin.

* * *

He ended up back in the atelier, sitting in the studio staring blankly at a row of completed tourist attraction watercolors. 

Yusuke had known, intellectually, that it was unlikely any of the other Thieves had come back. He probably would have heard from them already if they had. But he'd been somehow hoping that meeting face to face would make a difference. 

He was very depressed. 

Maybe he should paint a picture of all the Phantom Thieves to make himself feel better. 

Maybe that would make him feel worse. 

Maybe he should just not do it because it might lead to awkward questions about who those people were.

* * *

"I'm home," Kiyomi-senpai called some time later. "Yusuke-kun? Where are you?"

"In the studio, senpai," he called back. No wonder she was confused — he hadn't turned on any of the bright floor lamps. "Welcome back."

Kiyomi-senpai appeared in the doorway. "Yusuke-kun, Togo-san here _very_ urgently wanted to speak to you, so… I'm going to make some tea." As she headed for the kitchen, leaving Hifumi Togo vibrating with outrage in the doorway, she called over her shoulder, "Hitoshi is still in that wretched cafe. Not only is it still open, I'm not sure they're going to be able to close it when the _festival_ ends, so consider us scheduled for cooking lessons."

Yusuke could not spare the attention to care, at the moment. "Ah. Togo-san…"

"What did you mean," she said. "About my mother."

…He couldn't even remember what he'd said about her mother, but he probably shouldn't have known whatever it was. Also— "Actually at this point in time she may not have started fixing games yet. I don't know when that started. Will start." That probably wasn't helping. 

"Fixing— What are you _talking_ about?"

Claim it was a vivid dream? Maybe he could claim to have consulted a psychic? No, this was hopeless. "Togo-san, obviously I have no idea what's going on. I apologize."

"You cannot mysteriously know about the — idol aspirations thing and then just _say that_." She advanced on him, eyes flashing. Yusuke stepped back warily. 

"I… um…" He took another step back, reaching back with one hand gingerly to make sure he wasn't about to run into _Self-Portrait As A Cognition_. Not too close. "Togo-san, you really shouldn't worry about it."

But instead of further demanding explanations — or having mercy and retreating — she stared at him. At slightly behind him. "How are you—?"

Yusuke tried to take advantage of her distraction and sidle away, but his hand… seemed to be… stuck…?

He felt a deep sense of foreboding, but turned to look anyway. 

His hand was sticking through his painting. _Into_ his painting. There was no tear in the canvas, just a visual _ripple_ around his wrist, and — no sign of his hand. 

Maybe he should have taken all the comments on the painting's creepiness more seriously…

Yusuke tried to pull his hand out. It didn't come. He could still feel it, could still wiggle his fingers — he thought — but… "Kiyomi-senpai?" he called a little unsteadily. "Could you come in here please?"

"Are you trapped?" Togo-san said. "How can I help?"

"Um — apparently. This has never…" He tugged again, a little harder. Was there a little give?

Kiyomi-senpai came in. "What— what." She stared, stopping in the door. "How is—"

Togo-san took hold of Yusuke's arm at the elbow and yanked, hard. 

The painting tipped over onto both of them. Except the canvas never hit. 

They left the real world behind with Kiyomi-senpai's cry of "What the actual _fuck_ " ringing in their ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This writing pace is not going to keep up forever. I should just post more slowly to avoid raising unrealistic expectations, but it's written so I wanna post it nooooooow.
> 
> As you can see, I eventually decided to include Hifumi. I will try to keep the focus on the main cast, though.
> 
> Next chapter, coming up I can't begin to predict when, we return to the present and Futaba reacting to this tale.


	4. Interlude

" _What_?" Futaba… yelped. Definitely yelped. Definitely not shrieked. "You're trying to tell me you _painted a portal into the Metaverse_?!"

"I told you it was an implausible story," Yusuke said stiffly. 

"Yes, but — _painted a portal into the Metaverse_?"

"It's not as if it was on _purpose_."

"That makes it _worse_ , Inari." She wondered if this meant she could _hack_ a portal into the Metaverse if she tried. Or by accident. Of course, Yusuke's connection to Madarame's Palace was considerably more intimate than Futaba's connection to any Palace except her own, which presumably didn't exist, despite her uncle's best efforts at triggering it today. 

…He probably hadn't triggered a Palace, but he had, unless it was a coincidence, triggered her memory. She needed to think about this.

That would have to wait. "So—" She broke off with a squeak as the door opened.

"Well, I'm done," said a girl who must be Kiyomi. She looked cranky. "Yusuke-kun — Lala-chan said you'd brought a friend?"

"Yes," Yusuke said. "This is my good friend Futaba — Isshiki. We… met at… Shuujin Academy's cultural festival."

Kiyomi pinched the bridge of her nose. "You didn't _go_ to Shuujin's cultural festival, Yusuke-kun. I am very, very, _very_ certain of that." She walked over to Hitoshi and knelt, gently shaking his shoulder.

"You caught us," Futaba said brightly. "We met online." …Wait, she lived with Inari, she had to know he was borderline computer illiterate. "Or, um…"

"Wake up, Hitoshi, I'm off work, we need to go." She looked over her shoulder, more at Yusuke than Futaba. "This is another magic painting thing I don't want to know about, isn't it."

"Yes," Yusuke said, sounding relieved. He rose to his feet. "Futaba, this is my senpai Kiyomi Hirota."

That was probably a sign she should get up, too. "Pleased to meet you," Futaba said, not sure whether she was lying. She definitely wasn't pleased they were about to leave…

Hitoshi sat up, rubbing his eyes. "I slept all evening? Yusuke-kun, you should've… Who's this?"

"My good friend Futaba Isshiki," Yusuke repeated. "Futaba, my senpai Hitoshi Sawamura."

"Pleased to meet you," Futaba said. Definitely sincere this time, both because Hitoshi had sounded hilarious rather than intimidating and because she obviously sympathized strongly with Yusuke's desire to save him this time.

"Senpai," Yusuke said, "Futaba is… Futaba's mother has just been admitted to the hospital, and she is supposed to stay with her uncle, and her uncle is… not a good person. There must be something…"

"Please," Futaba said, not sure what exactly she was asking for.

Kiyomi put her hand to her face again. "What… _kind_ of not a good person?"

"Um…" Yusuke seemed at a loss, which was fair, because how were you supposed to answer that question? He was like a miniboss of a bad person?

Futaba tried to explain anyway. "He's — he's jealous of my mom being smarter than him, so he thinks he deserves… stuff, and he doesn't care about other people, and—" Ugh, this was getting nowhere. "Can you maybe just listen to the voicemail he left and see if he's still mad?" She glanced at her phone. "Um. Voicemails." He'd called twice more while Yusuke had been talking.

"Sure, I can do that." Kiyomi accepted the phone after Futaba brought up the voicemails. "I can tell you that if I'd been in middle school and vanished for hours in Shinjuku at this time of night, even my grandfather would be more relieved than anything else, at least for the first hour—" She broke off.

Futaba couldn't make out any of the words, happily, but she could hear her uncle's furious screaming from where she stood. She backed up a few more steps to reduce the chance of accidentally understanding something. Yusuke and Hitoshi, on the other hand, leaned in to listen.

"It, ah, sounds as if he's still angry," Yusuke said weakly. "As of the most recent voicemail."

Kiyomi just brought up another voicemail. As far as Futaba could tell it was the same volume of screaming, so at least he hadn't gotten angrier?

"That's…" Hitoshi said. "That's a very rude thing to say about your sister who's in the hospital."

Say _what_? That _fucker_. Futaba expected him to say nasty things about _her_ , but her mom was _off-limits_.

"I don't think she should go back there," Yusuke said. "It's not _safe_."

The phone rang. Futaba, Yusuke, and Hitoshi jumped.

"Is it Sojiro?" Futaba asked, without much hope.

"No," Kiyomi said. "It's the same number as before." She sighed heavily, and answered the phone. Futaba covered her own mouth to muffle a shriek. "Hello, you must be Futaba-chan's uncle," Kiyomi said, apparently before Uncle Yoji could start screaming again. "Yes, hello. My name is Kiyomi Hirota, and Futaba-chan is a dear friend of my kouhai." Her voice was different somehow — she'd lost an accent, maybe? But _who cared_.

" _What's she doing_?" Futaba hissed at Yusuke.

He shrugged helplessly. "'Something'?"

"Haha, I'm sure you don't mean to imply that my precious kouhai doesn't exist, Isshiki-san!"

…He'd just said Futaba didn't have any friends, hadn't he.

"Oh, of course — we're both honored to be students of the master artist Madarame. You've heard of him of course."

Futaba wondered whether he actually had or was pretending to so he wouldn't feel uncultured.

"But to the point, we just heard about poor Futaba-chan's mother. She's so distraught. And very sorry for running away — you must have been so worried about her."

Suuuuuure he was.

"But you know sometimes children of that age do better among their friends — we'll be happy to take care of her for a few days while things get settled down. That way she'll have the comfort she needs in this trying time and you can devote your energy directly to your sister, Isshiki-san."

Oh. Okay.

"Here's my number so you can call me directly." Somewhat to Futaba's surprise, Kiyomi actually gave the number slowly enough that it could conceivably be written down. "So! That's settled, then." She paused briefly. "Yes, of course. Good night, Isshiki-san."

"Does she do that a lot?" Futaba whispered.

"Do what?"

"Go all… 'This is not a suggestion it is indisputable fact'."

"No," Kiyomi said, returning Futaba's phone. "I save imitating my mother for dire emergencies, because it's humiliating when it doesn't work."

Made sense. "…Thank you," Futaba said.

"Don't thank me too much, I've just committed you to staying in a very cold shack or a very crowded hotel room, and I'm not sure which is worse."

Futaba had a Brilliant Idea. "You should all come back to my apartment!" Before anyone could respond, she pushed on. "My mom hasn't even been sick twenty-four hours — okay yes she has now, but the apartment is still there and everything works and… stuff. I just didn't want to go back because it would be really easy for my uncle to find me there." Honesty compelled her to add, "And I was a little nervous that the crooked cops planting evidence might still be there, but they must have left by _now_. Mom never brings work home, there's no reason for them to stick around."

Kiyomi gaped at her.

"Futaba's mother was researching the… magic painting thing you don't want to know about," Yusuke said carefully. "Just… without the painting part. There are… some dangerous people interested in it."

Kiyomi groaned. "I have lost control of my life. _Fine_. But you two come up with a story about how you know each other which _doesn't_ involve things dangerous people are interested in before anyone _else_ asks."

* * *

They stopped at a convenience store in the station for food first. Kiyomi bought bento for the atelier trio but didn't try to object to Futaba sticking to sweets and canned coffee. Everyone was too hungry and tired to say much.

Although on second thought a sandwich sounded good. She hadn't really eaten anything since… um…

Um…

There'd been a vending machine at some point in the hospital, hadn't there? While she was waiting for Sojiro to emerge? Right, the nurselike person had fussed at her, and she'd gone and eaten… something. With several cans of coffee. She'd totally eaten something. But a sandwich was probably a good idea.

She'd slept a little in the waiting room, too, which was probably good since it was the only sleep she'd gotten since she woke up… well, she'd probably make it home before she hit the forty hour mark. Hopefully she wouldn't crash until then.

It was late enough that four teenagers riding the train together could potentially be a little conspicuous, and Futaba knew she was the most conspicuous of the bunch, even with the other three carrying duffel bags and Yusuke occasionally doing that silly 'framing' gesture. She tried to look accompanied-by-a-responsible-adult.

"You told both of them?" Futaba whispered when Hitoshi seemed to have dozed off and Kiyomi looked absorbed in a study guide. "I get why you had to tell her since you disappeared in front of her, but—"

"We reappeared practically on top of Hitoshi-senpai," Yusuke interrupted.

That'd do it. But, _we_ , right— "What happened with the shogi girl? Oh, and I forgot because of the painting thing, but I can't _believe_ you babbled all that at her."

"I was very distracted," Yusuke said stiffly. "As for Hifumi-san… her phone does have a fully functional app, and it indicated her mother's Shadow is somewhere in the Path of Chemdah in Mementos. I'm fairly sure it was deeper when we fought it…"

"Yeah, by two or three paths," Futaba said. "I can't remember which one, they're all unpronounceable… It's probably weaker, too."

"I would guess that as well. Unfortunately, the Mementos doors are sealed. We cannot get any deeper than the first path."

"Well, crap." There went her half-formed plan of just stealing her uncle's heart, unless his Shadow happened to be a _lot_ closer to the surface now. (Kana's parents, too.)

"Indeed. In the absence of Metaverse solutions, she is trying to head her mother off in the real world. I understand this already involved forfeiting one competition game when she felt her mother's behavior was particularly suspicious."

Sheesh. "Okay, but before we got sidetracked on Mementos, what I _meant_ to ask was, did shogi girl get a Persona? It sounds like you're implying she did?"

"Yes. Also a naginata and a bow." 

A bow, jeez. Not as weird as Mona's slingshot, but Mona was a _cat_. "Is she any good?"

He shrugged slightly. "I've only gone in the Metaverse with her three times, including the first accidental one."

Three times in two months? "…Why?"

He shrugged again. "Exams were coming up. And we both have problems we can better solve in the real world right now."

"…You haven't tried the museum at all?"

"Not seriously. I'd have to break into Sensei's… storeroom to get very far, if I recall the account correctly, and it wouldn't work if I didn't get caught. Even after that… with two people, one with no experience? It's not practical."

Futaba stared at him for a moment, then grabbed his sketchpad and whacked him on the head with it. "Inari, that would be why you _take the newbie to the top of Mementos and get her some experience_."

Yusuke frowned, as if he'd somehow never considered this revolutionary idea. "That doesn't solve the locked door problem. _Either_ locked door problem."

"Ugh, fine." She let him have his sketchpad back. "There is _way_ too much going on."

* * *

The crooked cops had at least had the decency to lock the door when they left. Futaba did a quick check of the apartment — no one in sight, her mother's seldom-used desktop computer was gone but that was to be expected, her own setup had possibly been tampered with and would have to be checked for spyware but none of it was missing so that was good, the money drawer was now empty which was not good, and… they'd apparently taken the coffee machine and ransacked the spice cabinet?

" _Weirdos_ ," Futaba muttered viciously. "Okay, there's a futon or two in that closet, toilet's through there, bathroom's there, use the shower if you want, help yourself to food, I've got to crash. Oh, but first, Kiyomi-san, can I have your number to send my mom's friend Sojiro? I should probably tell him where I am…"

* * *

FI: Hi — Uncle Yoji got scary, staying in apartment with friends instead, everything fine now  
FI: Call Kiyomi Hirota _[phone number]_ for details, I'm going to crash, been up for 40 hrs  
FI: Stay with Mom!!!!!

* * *

Futaba had honestly expected nightmares, but instead she dreamed she was in Leblanc's attic, telling Akira everything that happened. Or maybe she should say Joker, since they were both in Metaverse gear. The attic itself looked normal, cozy, but it was raining blood outside.

It still wasn't a nightmare, though, because Akira smiled and patted her head. "It sounds like you're doing great."

"Eh, I ran away from my uncle."

"You needed more party members for the boss fight," Akira corrected.

"That's _my_ metaphor. You're a dream."

"Hmm, maybe." He leaned back on the couch. "But I'm out there, and whether I know it now or not, we have a bond that can _never_ be broken."

The rest of the night passed peacefully.

* * *

Futaba woke up to the smell of frying eggs and remembered everything immediately, no disorientation. (No disorientation for the first time in a _year_ , probably.) She was still sort of tired, though. When she checked her phone, it was only eight something. Ugh. Still, better get up. Probably lots to do today.

Hitoshi was the one cooking eggs while Yusuke wandered through the kitchen looking in cabinets and getting in the way. Kiyomi was on the phone, a cup on convenience store coffee in her other hand.

"…It was a surprise to me, too, Sakura-san, but I think it just never occurred to Yusuke-kun that anyone would want to know. Uh-huh. Oh, here's Futaba-chan now!"

Oh, good. And oh, bad, because she hadn't come up with a plausible story yet, and she'd probably better not try 'we met online' on Sojiro. She took the phone anyway. "Sojiro?"

"Futaba, what happened? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine now!" she said quickly. "And Uncle Yoji — I just… panicked, and ran away from him, and he got… _really_ mad. Really really mad. And I got scared, so when I ran into Inari — Yusuke, I mean, I thought maybe I'd hang out with him for a while until Uncle Yoji calmed down, but he left voicemails and he… didn't. Calm down."

"So Hirota-san said," Sojiro said grimly. "I'm glad you ran into them, considering the situation. But I can—"

" _Mom_ ," Futaba insisted. "Stay with Mom. At least for the next few days."

Sojiro was silent for a moment, and Futaba wondered if there was something he didn't want to say over the phone, or maybe in public. "Bring them with you to the hospital. I want to meet them."

"I'll… ask them to. How is she?"

"Stable," Sojiro said. "They're moving her to a room in a few hours — you should be able to visit today. You shouldn't come in immediately, though. Early afternoon."

"Ugh, I _guess_."

* * *

Futaba ate only slightly burned fried eggs, did a more thorough job of showing her houseguests where everything was and secured their agreement to accompany her to the hospital, then withdrew to boot up her computers and start scanning for any malicious additions. This was going to take a while. Just to be on the safe side, she disabled all audio or visual pickups in the meantime. And checked her room for any mysterious devices she hadn't put there. (She knew she should have built that bug sweeper.) Then she poked her head out of her room. "Hey, Inari, come finish telling me that thing while my scans are running."

"What? Oh, uh, the thing. Right." Once in her room, he asked, "Which thing?"

"Well, let's start with who you've told what… what you've told who… and what happened after you _fell through a magic painting_."


	5. Without A Map

Yusuke blinked past the Metaverse transition in time to realize he was being launched head-first across a hallway at a height of about two meters, but not in time to do anything about it before he hit the opposite wall and crashed to the floor. He was quick to disentangle himself from Togo-san and roll to his feet, and then realized he'd rolled through a security laser grid when an alarm started blaring. Shit. 

He looked back at Togo-san — picking herself up, eyes wide, rubbing her head — and the wall from which they had apparently emerged. There was his portrait — Sensei's cognition of him. It wasn't completely identical to _Self-Portrait As A Cognition_ , but very close. Presumably that had something to do with how this had even _happened_?

"What—" Togo-san started. 

"I will — attempt to explain later, but we need to get out of here. That alarm will be summoning guards." First thing to try — he put a hand on… his own portrait. Solid. "This seems to have been one-way. We need to get out of the museum, then, or find a safe room." _Could_ you get out via a safe room if you'd never been to the exterior of the Palace?

"Museum? This—" Togo-san broke off and shook her head fiercely. "Understood. I will follow your lead. Which way?"

"Um…" Unfortunately he hadn't spent much time in this part of Sensei's Palace. He'd been through here once, right after awakening his Persona (Kamu Susano-o was a comforting presence in his head now) but he couldn't remember how they'd left.

A pair of 'security guard' Shadows appeared at one end of the hallway.

"Let us try the other way."

It hardly made a difference. They crashed into another 'security guard' right around the corner, and then Yusuke and Kamu Susano-o — with a defenseless civilian behind them — were facing three Night-Walking Warriors and two Girls of the Hanging Tree. Had Yusuke been at the strength he'd had when first facing this Palace, their first fire attack would have knocked him off his feet. Since he wasn't, he withstood it, and evaded the next one, and took them all out with ice.

"This explanation is looking longer and longer, Kita—"

"Fox," Yusuke interrupted quickly. "Just… while we're in here, call me Fox."

They successfully evaded the next two Shadows and found what looked like a lobby, but there were five more Shadows in front of possibly-the-exit. Since Yusuke didn't actually _remember_ leaving that way, he tried the other direction, swinging around a disgusting gold statue of Sensei into… another twisty room full of portraits. He spotted Hitoshi-senpai and Kiyomi-senpai and Natsuhiko-senpai among them, which didn't do anything good for his concentration, and they failed to avoid first several lasers and then a security guard who turned into two Corpse Birds (which went down with a few shots despite his very unimpressive gun) and a Leafy Old Man (which he had to take his _highly unsatisfactory_ sword to).

"Why are there more than one of the… Why does one guard turn into multiple… creatures?"

"I don't think I ever got any sort of explanation for that," Yusuke admitted. "They're referred to as Shadows. Especially in the forms that… suit the location. The… other forms… arise from the collective unconsciousness."

"…I'm concerned."

Understandably. And she really hadn't seen anything yet.

Up some stairs, turn a corner — long stretch of hall with a display case in the middle. Some sort of shiny— Wait. Was this the first treasure demon? The one Ryuji said Morgana had made an absolute idiot of himself over?

Damn. "We're going the wrong way. My apologies."

"I promise I will forgive you everything as soon as you _explain this_."

She said that like it would be easy.

Back the way they came. All those _damn_ portraits and lasers. Another security guard he failed to avoid, this time turning into _two_ Leafy Old Men and a Waterside Nymph. Fortunately Kamu Susano-o threw off ice. Fortunately none of them had targeted Togo-san yet, he didn't know what any of the attacks would do to someone with no Persona. Back into the garishness of the lobby—

"Who has the effrontery to _intrude_ on my museum?"

Oh, _hell_.

"That… looks like… is that…?" Togo-san said.

"Not exactly," Yusuke said. "Just try to ignore what it's saying until we can get past them." Sensei's Shadow hadn't attacked personally until they'd been on the verge of stealing the Treasure — it had just sent minions at them before. It had two 'guards' and two 'docents' with it now — what sort of Shadows would that translate into? _How many_ Shadows would that translate into?

"How dare you _ignore_ me!"

Damn.

He did not want to talk to Sensei's Shadow.

He still had to _live_ with Sensei, he _very much did not want to talk to his Shadow_.

When Yusuke remained stubbornly silent, the Shadow stomped a foot. "Seize that — impertinent rogue!"

The 'guards' shattered into clusters of Night Chimeras and Possessive Dog Ghosts. The first volley of physical damage bounced off Kamu Susano-o's High Counter and knocked a Dog Ghost back. The second volley was a spell he didn't recognize immediately—

Confusion. Oh, _no_.

"Er, before you continue attacking my associate, may I please ask… what _is_ all this?" Togo-san asked, from a long way away.

"What is— _This_ is the great museum of the Master Artist Madarame!" the Shadow declared. "Pay homage to its glory!"

"I… see," Togo-san said. "I've heard great things about… you… it's true, but… I must say this museum isn't really to my taste."

That probably wasn't a very good way to placate the Shadow, but nothing ever placated any Shadow for long — unless you were Akira, of course, and even he couldn't usually bring the people-Shadows around. But it seemed to be working as _stalling_ , the Shadows weren't attacking, and if he could just throw this off somehow—

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" the Shadow demanded.

"Well, it's just that I'd… heard that, ah, you were noted for the many kinds of painting you worked in, and really all I've seen here is portraits." Togo-san paused, and coughed. "And that… statue."

"Those are but the _implements_ through which my art is created!" the Shadow ranted. "They are _nothing_! Everything they make is _mine_!"

And there he was admitting the plagiarism himself, when Togo-san had only implied she found all the portraits repetitive. Really, Yusuke expected better.

"And honestly I find the overall effect a little… a little _gaudy_ ," Togo-san went on coolly. "You seemed much more… austere, in the… normal world."

"Ha!" the Shadow cried. "Foolish girl! That's all a show, for gullible fools like you. Money and fame is the _point_ of it all! It's the only point of _anything_!"

"There are many people who do things for other reasons," Togo-san said, more of an edge in her voice. "For pride in the creation, for the joy of accomplishment—"

"And those people exist to be bought and sold by those who know better! All of you stupid children are commodities, you only vary in how valuable you are — to those who know how to squeeze it out of you! Are you for sale, you little chit? I'm not buying, you're worthless to me!"

The air was suddenly very heavy.

"For… sale…?" Togo-san said. "I'm not…"

Oh.

Honestly he would have expected it to take a confrontation with her mother to push Togo-san to awakening. Apparently not.

"What are you—" the Shadow said, but Yusuke expected that, at this point, she couldn't even hear it.

"No. _I_ am taking command of my own destiny, now— Rise up, _Hangaku_!"

Sensei's Shadow freaked out and left. Togo-san and her Persona made short work of the Possessive Dog Ghosts, and then—

Then his head was clearing as Togo-san grabbed his arm and _ran_.

Huh.

"I'm all right now," he said. "Confusion clears up when you leave a fight. …How did you get away?"

"It seemed like the obvious thing to do," she replied, sounding slightly manic. "I think we're almost back to where we came in — do we try the _other_ direction now?"

They ran through another set of security lasers and had to fight a guard who turned into two Waterside Nymphs and a Girl of the Hanging Tree. He'd forgotten that Waterside Nymphs shielded weaknesses. It occurred to him that they didn't actually know what Togo-san's Persona was weak to. She'd used wind, like Morgana, Morgana was weak to electricity, and… Yusuke had no idea which Shadows used electricity. Here or elsewhere.

Back past Yusuke's portrait, past more portraits, trip _another_ security laser — the lighting was getting alarmingly red — beat another Night-Walking Warrior/Girl of the Hanging Tree combination, and—

They'd come in through a _skylight_. How could he have _forgotten_.

Getting up was trickier than getting down would have been — hadn't there been a rope before? Togo-san ended up using the naginata she'd acquired as a vaulting aid, and then something for Yusuke to grab hold of. So there was more damage injuring himself on a teammate's polearm. Happily, at least the skylight pushed out easily. Togo-san giggled something about fire safety.

Off the roof, across the garden, and out.

Yusuke sat down heavily amid the cars in the imaginary parking lot. "That was a very unpleasant surprise."

Togo-san followed suit. "Which part?"

"Mainly the painting being a… portal," Yusuke said judiciously. "And some of the Shadows' abilities. The rest of it wasn't a surprise — apart from your awakening of a Persona, but that wasn't unpleasant. Quite the contrary."

"Hangaku…" Togo-san murmured. She slumped back against the car behind her.

Ah. Post-awakening exhaustion, right on schedule. "We should return to the real world." Yusuke pulled out his phone, ready to bring up the app—

His phone did not have the app. His phone did not have any apps, because it was not that kind of phone. Even in the hopefully-averted future in which Hitoshi-senpai spent the last of his money to get Yusuke a smartphone, that hadn't happened for another five months.

"Um."

It _had_ brought up the speed dial menu by itself… he'd never actually _used_ the speed dial function, but speed dial 4 seemed to have been set to… a bunch of unreadable glyphs.

That was probably a hint.

"My apologies if this takes us somewhere worse," he said, and keyed in speed dial 4.

The parking lot blurred around them into the atelier's front walk. Hitoshi-senpai jerked back to keep from walking into Togo-san, and tripped on Yusuke, and they both crashed into the wall.

"What the—" Hitoshi-senpai said.

The front door crashed open. " _Hitoshi_ you're— _Yusuke-kun_. Thank god. What the _fuck_."

"What?" Hitoshi-senpai said.

"Um. I." Yusuke searched for words. "I… will try to explain?"

* * *

It turned out they'd been gone for about an hour, long enough for Kiyomi-senpai to _thoroughly_ question her sanity but — fortunately for everyone involved — not long enough for her to actually call anyone.

"Who the hell would I even have called?" Kiyomi-senpai asked her can of coffee as they sat around the kitchen table. "Sensei? My grandparents? Tell the police a painting fell on them and they disappeared? Maybe I could have called Hitoshi to see if the saint cafe had a relevant saint?"

"I think that would be one of the Anthonys, but I don't think it was the Anthony we had," Hitoshi-senpai said. "Oh, speaking of the cafe, Tanaka-sensei decided the last batch of Agatha cakes were too successful to sell, so they gave them to me since they said I'm always hungry— Actually, maybe that should wait."

Everyone looked at Yusuke expectantly.

Well… start with the basics. "The painting… unexpectedly functioned as a portal into a sort of… parallel dimension called the Metaverse. The Metaverse is shaped by people's cognition…"

He gave a short introduction to the Metaverse, Shadows, Personas, and Palaces, with Madarame's Palace as an example. All three of them listened carefully, with Togo-san — "Hifumi, considering" — nodding thoughtfully in places.

"If you require proof," Yusuke said finally, "I would be willing to take you as far as the museum exterior. Though I would have to ask you to leave your phones here."

"I'd like to, some time," Hitoshi-senpai said. "It's not that I don't believe you, Yusuke-kun, considering you appeared out of nowhere, but I'd… like to see it."

"I would _not_ ," Kiyomi-senpai said. "I am studying for entrance exams, I do not have time for magic museum dimensions. I don't even want to _know_ about magic museum dimensions."

Yusuke wasn't sure what to say. "You… don't have to, senpai. The situation is under control." It really wasn't, especially considering Mementos, but it was nothing his senpai could be expected to help with.

"Uh huh. And when and how exactly did _you_ find out about all this, Yusuke-kun?"

Yusuke froze for a very long moment before he figured out what to say. "Kiyomi-senpai, if you do not want to know about magic museum dimensions, you _really_ do not want to know how I know all this."

Kiyomi-senpai groaned and lowered her face to the table. Hitoshi-senpai patted her on the shoulder.

* * *

Hifumi bided her time until he was walking her to the train station. "I can see how the Metaverse would let you find out all sorts of things, but… You said my mother 'may not have started fixing games yet'. That you 'don't know when that started', and then you corrected it to, 'will start'."

"…Yes. I did."

"Explain."

It was probably useless to try to lie. "About… ten months ago, now, I woke up remembering three years into the future," Yusuke said finally. "I realize that may be… even more implausible than the rest—"

"No," Hifumi interrupted. "Well, yes, inasmuch as I haven't seen it for myself, but… I believe you."

That was easier than he'd expected. "Ah. Well. The Metaverse was one of the things I experienced in those years."

"And so was my mother?"

"Not directly — we both went to Kosei, but we didn't really know each other. You were a friend of our leader. When he found out about your situation, he led us to confront your mother's Shadow."

"…Like Madarame-san's Shadow?"

"Not… as extreme as that. Shadows which form Palaces are… unusually distorted. Your mother's Shadow was in Mementos, which is… the default location, I suppose. We defeated it, and took a — representation of her distorted desires, and she… stopped." And then a little later the world possibly ended, should he mention that part?

"You aren't going to tell your senpai that part?"

Yusuke shook his head quickly. "Not if I can avoid it. There are — I don't want to tell them about the future."

(Although he'd blurted out the things he least wanted to mention to them, that first morning when he thought he was dreaming. He'd left out that Hitoshi-senpai's death had been a suicide, but they both knew very well how depressed Hitoshi-senpai could get and how much of a danger that was, they could figure that out. If they ever realized that morning hadn't just been the result of stress and spoiled sandwiches—)

"All right. I need to think about this — not about not telling them, of course I won't mention anything, but just… everything."

"Entirely understandable. Are you safe to travel?"

"I'll be fine, thank you."

"Oh, one more thing. A strange app with an image of an eye may appear on your phone. Activating it will drop you into the Metaverse. …Please don't go haphazardly exploring in the Metaverse."

"I won't. Thank you, Yusuke."

Five minutes after she boarded a train, Yusuke realized they had neglected to exchange contact information. He guessed she knew where to find him…

* * *

Over the next several days, Yusuke experimented with the MetaNav, such as it was. There was no way to type in names, and it definitely didn't take voice commands. It was just… speed dial 4, and he was in the museum.

He tried speed dial 4 away from the atelier, and ended up… definitely in the Metaverse. Not under Kaneshiro's flying bank, which he might have expected from random Metaverse entry in Shibuya. Upon further investigation, though, entering the train station brought him to Mementos, so he guessed he had just… already been in Mementos. On the surface. 

Huh. 

Yusuke wondered how much it would cost to get a phone that actually ran apps.

He also experimented with 'Self-Portrait As A Cognition'. The edges were inert, which was why no one had noticed anything earlier. Coins or chopsticks tossed at the painting bounced off the canvas, but if Yusuke _held_ a chopstick and touched the painting, the portal activated. At that point he could let go of the chopstick and it alone would fall into the Metaverse, but once he touched the painting himself and entered the portal with even a fingernail, he wasn't getting away without going through to the museum. 

(His second and third… visits… to the museum were considerably less hectic than the first. It helped that he was expecting it. And knew where he was going. He even managed to get a little cash out of it. Not enough for a better phone or sword or gun just yet, but he was able to restock the bandages he'd been swiping from the first aid kit.)

(Come to think of it, there _was_ that treasure demon not very far in. He wondered how difficult a Shadow it was…)

At any rate he decided it was probably safer to turn the painting to face the wall, even though it would probably make Sensei feel more comfortable in the apprentices' studio again.

* * *

On the weekend, he took Hitoshi-senpai to the museum parking lot, as agreed — Kiyomi-senpai looked up from studying long enough to tell them to be careful, and didn't seem to have made much progress when they got back. Hitoshi-senpai lamented the inability to take pictures and settled down to sketch an exterior of the museum. Yusuke hoped Sensei found it unsettling.

* * *

Hifumi showed up on Sunday, sheepish about forgetting to get his number. "I have a lot of questions, and I really could have gotten some of them out of the way earlier…"

"It's difficult to think straight after a Persona awakening," Yusuke said. Which meant _he_ should have thought of it, but to be fair to himself, it wasn't easy to think straight after being dropped into a Palace unexpectedly, either. "Kiyomi-senpai and Hitoshi-senpai are both in the middle of projects, so perhaps we should go out."

The money from the Palace trips should cover a coffeeshop, at least. Though he didn't offer to pay for Hifumi.

"What… kinds of questions?" Yusuke asked, once they'd settled in and actually exchanged numbers before they could forget again.

"Well, that app you mentioned _is_ on my phone now — with a known destination there when it showed up…"

"Ichiryusai Madarame, atelier, museum," Yusuke said.

"…It said shack, actually…"

"…Or that."

"So I tried giving it a few other names and places, and that _Mementos_ place you mentioned—"

Yusuke was fairly sure Akira had _not_ had to deal with this sort of thing even with _Ryuji_. "Going into the Metaverse alone is—"

"Oh, I haven't _gone_ to any of them, I've just been… looking, is all." Hifumi held out her phone with the app open. 

Yusuke looked. He didn't recognize any of the names except her mother's (and that only because of the name), although a few felt like maybe they should have been familiar. Most had 'Mementos' next to them, but Hifumi had apparently also found a man with a Palace in a shogi parlor — distortion still unidentified — and someone at what he assumed was her middle school who saw it as a gladiatorial arena.

"I'd really like to at least see what that one looks like…" Hifumi said wistfully.

"Appalling," Yusuke said. "They're always appalling." Not that he was… totally incurious himself. "We should go to Mementos, though."

"Can we change my mother's heart?"

Yusuke eyed the MetaNav and tried to remember which one Chemdah was. He didn't _think_ it was the first one, which would make her mother's Shadow rather a hike. "We can look into it… We should stop and get some bandages first, though." He paused. "Oh, and you'll need a code name. It's… prudent not to throw real names around." Although he wasn't sure whether that really applied in Mementos…

"Hmmm…"

* * *

Bandages purchased, they made their way to Shibuya Station and then to Mementos. Yusuke hadn't really paid any attention to Hifumi's Metaverse costume in the museum, he'd been too distracted. It turned out to be a sort of… old-fashioned cinematic ninja, black coat and trousers with black bandages wrapped around shins and forearms to hold the cloth out of the way. Her mask was cloth, a bandana with eye holes cut out.

Hifumi made an incredulous noise. "Oh, no. I'm a _stagehand_ ninja. This isn't how ninjas really dressed—"

"In terms of conspicuous Metaverse wear, you are… very near the bottom, so I wouldn't worry about it."

"The _bottom_ —?"

"For a code name… what about Shadow? Or — better make it Shade."

Hifumi considered. "It suits the outfit, anyway."

The first levels of Mementos — the Path of Qimranut — were even easier than the museum was. Hifumi took a little while to get up her nerve properly, but before they made it to the second area she was taking out Shadows with naginata and bow and a few wind spells from Hangaku. They also discovered that Hangaku might have a _fire_ weakness.

"That is inconvenient," Hifumi said when Yusuke explained his Persona had the same vulnerability. "…Potentially, anyway. You'll need to tell me more about these elements…"

Yusuke hoped he could remember more about the elements.

They made it down to the end of Qimranut, and found the doors sealed. Definitely wouldn't be making it to Chemdah, then.

"In the future I remember, we opened the Mementos doors by becoming… notorious. I never completely understood it."

"Hmmm." Hifumi prodded the door with the haft of her naginata.

"I'm… fairly sure there's no other way to open it…"

Hifumi kept poking at it, anyway, until Yusuke abruptly remembered they should _not_ be standing around Mementos indefinitely, and without Mona, they would be _much slower_. They ran, and made it back to the escalators to the previous area just as they heard chains.

* * *

"Well, that was very interesting," Hifumi said, back in the real world. "We should do it again sometime. Next weekend I have a competition, but… the week after?"

Yusuke considered the Reaper. "It might be more prudent to go to Sensei's Palace instead. We would need to avoid _him_ , but that should be possible if we stay in the outer areas." Or, wait— "Or you could check your Nav to see if Natsuhiko Nakanohara shows up. He — his Shadow — was near the top of Mementos when the others defeated it, but I don't know if it's there yet at all."

"That's easy enough to check…"

He wasn't. Yusuke wasn't sure whether he felt relieved or disappointed.

"So, the museum, or… maybe we could check out the gladiatorial arena?"

"Well—"

"Just to see what it looks like?"

"Appalling," Yusuke repeated. "How likely are you to go by yourself if we do not?"

"I just want to _see_ it!"

…Plan on the gladiatorial arena, then. "You will have to give me directions to the location."

* * *

Visiting the museum regularly had, strangely, drastically reduced the nightmares and flashbacks. Yusuke didn't feel such a pressing need for — painting-exorcisms anymore, so he figured he should probably paint something that Sensei could steal comfortably. (He'd taken the two Palace-wall abstracts Yusuke had finished, but he never seemed to look at them straight on.) Kiyomi-senpai was on hiatus from major work until her entrance exams were done, and while Hitoshi-senpai wasn't as depressed as he sometimes was he wasn't at top productivity either. Yusuke needed to pick up the slack before Sensei got cranky.

But he didn't want to sacrifice anything _meaningful_ to Sensei, either, so… a still life, he decided. Of a bowl of fruit, a can of paintbrushes, and a stack of egg salad sandwiches.

It was made slightly more difficult by how people kept eating the fruit and sandwiches. But that was _fine_.

* * *

HT: Cannot make next weekend  
HT: Week after?  
YK: That should be workable

* * *

"I was grounded," Hifumi told him as they rode the train towards her middle school. "I forfeited a game at the competition and had a… a _fight_ with my mother, and— Well. It was all very undignified."

"I… see," Yusuke said, though he wasn't sure he did. "Do you think she understands your perspective?"

"No."

Apparently that was all Hifumi was willing to say about that, for the moment.

The gladiatorial arena was, indeed, appalling.

* * *

They kept in touch as November became December, but between studying for end-of-term exams, studying for high school entrance exams, Hifumi's increased shogi practice, and Sensei's demands, there was never a weekend convenient for both of them.

It was all right, though. It wasn't as if they had any sort of goal to aim for or any idea where they were going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Hangaku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangaku_Gozen): Hifumi's ideal of rebellion is an out-and-out military revolt. [Ninja costume as stagehand wear (or vice versa).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuroko)
> 
>  
> 
> We have finally hit the writing slowdown I have been predicting.
> 
> Edit 2/27: Changed Hifumi's codename because _why the hell did I think they would call a person Shadow when everything else is called Shadows, was I even awake_.


	6. Hit and Miss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, the end of this is really rushed but I really wanted to get it out tonight and I have work tomorrow, so. ~~I'll polish it later haha yeah right.~~ Actually did make a few small changes towards the end.

"I can't believe you told her about the time travel," Futaba grumbled. "I guess you had to, but— Never mind." If this was what Yusuke had managed, they could be pretty sure Ryuji didn't remember anything or the entire city would know. "Anyway that sounded like you had a chance to assess how she is, and she's fine." She checked on the scan — only about half done, but nothing unexpected so far.

"That still doesn't make us able to _get_ anywhere."

"No, but…" Futaba frowned at her computers. "I wonder if we needed to be well-known for _being Phantom Thieves_ , as such."

"What do you mean?"

"What if… we were Medjed's Metaverse branch? Like, Medjed — we can hack into _anything_. Could that get the Mementos doors open?"

"Hmm." Yusuke frowned. "I… don't know that it _wouldn't_ work…"

"Okay, we're now Medjed's Metaverse branch. We'll see what happens." Futaba checked the time. "And it's about time to head to the hospital, I think."

* * *

Uncle Yoji was not in evidence at the hospital, not that Futaba was complaining. The nurse raised a bit of an eyebrow at Futaba's 'friends', but led Futaba and Yusuke and Kiyomi back to Wakaba's room without any trouble. Hitoshi and his sick mask were asked to stay in the waiting room.

Her mother looked… alive. All the monitors indicated _that_ pretty clearly. The heart monitor was beeping steadily, the breathing thing was… doing its thing. So that was good. 

If only she weren't so still and pale and sick-looking…

Sojiro didn't look so good, either, though mostly in a 'way too little sleep' way. She gave him a hug.

Also— "Did they try again?" she whispered.

Sojiro grimaced. "She's past the dangerous period now. It would be — _surprising_ if she took a turn for the worse."

Suspicious, he meant. So they were less likely to try now. Did that mean they _had_ tried earlier? "Sojiro—"

"Why don't you introduce me to your friends?"

Introductions went… fine. Yusuke was subject to extra scrutiny which he apparently didn't notice. 

"Would it be possible for you to stay with Futaba-chan a few more days, Hirota-san?" Sojiro asked finally. "I'm trying to make arrangements for her to stay with me, but her uncle is… It will take longer than I hoped it would."

"Honestly for the next several days at least you're doing _us_ a favor by letting us stay," Kiyomi said. "The, uh… Well, Sensei has been _extremely focused_ on his spiritual retreat, I'm sure. When he gets back he'll pay the electric bill."

Futaba wondered if she could snoop out where Madarame really was and what he was doing. Quite possibly.

"Your teacher left you alone with no electricity?" Sojiro said.

"The electricity is only as of yesterday," Yusuke said. "However—" He broke off. "It's… ah… Sensei is very focused on his art."

How had Yusuke avoided exposing Madarame as a _completely inadequate_ guardian _by accident_ , if this was what he was like trying to cover things up? Had he just never talked to anyone enough for the subject to come up? Probably.

"Kid—" Sojiro stopped.

Future Sojiro, Futaba thought, would have _pushed_ , because Yusuke was a kid, and Yusuke was trying not to admit he was in trouble. And maybe Kiyomi would have covered successfully, and maybe she wouldn't have, but it didn't matter, because _this_ Sojiro wasn't going to push his way into another mess when he already had a huge one to deal with. Akira had been good for all of them.

It was just as well, right now.

"Yeah, I plan to avoid Madarame-san myself," Futaba said. "No need for me to meet him."

" _No_ ," Yusuke agreed forcefully.

"Yusuke-kun, you're going to make Sakura-san think Futaba-chan would be in danger," Kiyomi said. She was pinching the bridge of her nose again. "It would be embarrassing is all."

"Um. Yes. Of course," Yusuke said.

"Look, maybe we should let Futaba-chan and Sakura-san talk in private," Kiyomi said. "We'll meet you in the waiting room…?"

"Um, yeah," Futaba said. She'd probably end up telling Yusuke almost everything anyway, but she didn't want to try to explain that now. "Thanks. See you."

After Kiyomi towed Yusuke away, Sojiro shook his head. "Weird kid."

"I think it's an artist thing," Futaba said, shrugging. "And at least Kiyomi-san seems to have her head on straight. At least now I know why Yusuke didn't die of malnutrition years ago… Anyway, what's my uncle doing now?"

Sojiro shook his head. "Dragging his feet. He wants— well, he was dropping a lot of hints about things that aren't even up for discussion, now."

He wanted into her mother's bank accounts, in other words. Bastard.

"It will just take a little longer, is all. So if this… temporary arrangement works out — are you sure you know them well enough to trust them now?" Sojiro pressed.

"Yusuke wrecked my Featherman figures and I let him live," Futaba replied soberly.

"And I never heard about this because…?"

"It's a really, _really_ long story, Sojiro," Futaba said. "I trust Yusuke. You can trust Yusuke. Not to have any common sense, but with important stuff." She nodded firmly. "So. Mom?"

* * *

Her mother had "taken" either a chemical "cocktail" or multiple drugs separately — they'd found evidence of both amphetamines and opioids in her system. More precise results were still pending. Results on the pills were also still pending. 

"I don't think the hospital tests those itself," Futaba told Yusuke back at home — Kiyomi had stayed in Shinjuku to work, and Hitoshi was sleeping on the couch. "They probably have to send them to a police lab. And _they_ probably won't even test them, just make something up."

Yusuke nodded agreement. "But she will be all right?"

Futaba nodded. "Sojiro wouldn't tell me any details, but I looked up the drugs and stuff on the way back, and I think they were expecting the opioid overdose to kill her, and the stimulant was to… cover things up, I guess. _I_ think the guy did something to knock her out, first, before he drugged her — maybe chloroform, but there wouldn't be any evidence left of that."

Yusuke nodded again. "So… what next?"

"In the immediate future, I finish my system scan and get rid of any unwelcome additions." It was mostly done and hadn't found anything. Which was good, except she was feeling paranoid and would have to run another one. "Longer term, I'm… not sure what will happen when she wakes up." Futaba bit her lip. "Which is why Uncle Yoji is still an issue to worry about…"

"How was he handled the first time?"

"Sojiro had to let him have all Mom's money to get him to let me go, even though he didn't want me at all." Futaba scowled at the memory. "And then when he came _back_ , Akira and I got him in Mementos. Pretty far down. I didn't want Akira to tell the rest of you."

"I see."

Futaba pulled out her phone. "Yoji Isshiki, Mementos." Candidate found… _Qimranut_. "Inari! Look at this!"

* * *

YK: Would you be able to get away for a Mementos trip tomorrow morning?  
YK: Something has come up.  
YK: Several things actually.  
HT: Really!  
HT: Yes, I can.  
HT: I look forward to it.

* * *

They got away from the apartment without having to answer any questions, and Sojiro wouldn't be expecting her at the hospital until afternoon. With any luck, they'd be able to wrap everything up fast. They probably didn't actually need Hifumi, this near the surface with Yusuke's ultimate Persona at the ready, but better safe than sorry. Futaba really didn't want to say they shouldn't, when she wasn't the one who'd be doing the actual fighting.

"Hifumi, this is Futaba Isshiki," Yusuke said. "She's… like me."

"Except less weird," Futaba said.

Yusuke gave her a _Look_.

"What?"

"…I will let you judge for yourself our relative levels of weirdness," Yusuke said. "Futaba, Hifumi Togo. Hifumi, Futaba's uncle is causing… a number of issues and has a Shadow on the top path of Mementos. We're hoping to go in and quickly change his heart, like I told you about."

"Happy to be of help," Hifumi said. "Do we need to do that… calling card thing you mentioned?"

Futaba smacked her own forehead. "Thank you for mentioning that."

Five minutes later, and Uncle Yoji was receiving a text from a blocked number reading GOING 2 STEAL UR LYING GREEDY HEART. ("That's really going to make him sweat if he's having any affairs…" "Shut up, I didn't come up with the heart thing.")

Five minutes after that, they were descending into Mementos.

* * *

Mementos was much more annoying without the Monavan.

* * *

They didn't let her uncle rant for very long before pushing him into his full Shadow form — a one-eyed elephant thing, same as last time. Mostly physical with a few curses, same as last time. Reflected physical and guns, same as last time, which was very frustrating to Hifumi as she still didn't have that many spells.

Not as powerful as last time. By a lot.

He didn't go down _easy_ , exactly, but Futaba was never really concerned about the outcome.

"I swear we got a sword out of him last time," she said afterwards, picking up the folding knife. Then she looked at the sniveling Shadow. "Just — stop it. Deal with your own problems, and leave me and Mom out of it."

* * *

And that would have been a fine, perfectly successful Mementos trip. On the way out, though, they passed another pre-Palace Mementos bubble, and in the back of her mind Prometheus… blipped.

Futaba stumbled over her own feet. Yusuke tried and failed to catch her, but she managed to avoid face-planting at least. "You guys, hang on. I want to… check something…" She reached for her goggles and fully summoned Prometheus. The bubble contained a Shadow and _holy shit_ —!

Futaba clapped a hand over her mouth to suppress a squeak, and made frantic shooing motions. She wouldn't let either of the others say a word until they were around a corner, out of sight of the bubble.

"What is it?" Hifumi asked as soon as Futaba let them stop. "Is there something in there?"

"Yes, fucking _Akechi_ is in there!" Futaba hissed. "Shit, shit, I can't believe I forgot he could be lurking _anywhere_ —"

"…Who?"

"I'll explain later," Yusuke said. "Is he — killing someone's Shadow in there?"

Good question. Could Prometheus get any more information…? "It… doesn't sound like it, actually. Not right now. I think it's talking to him."

 _"…And now that we have those judges, we can stop hiring the criminal element and start_ owning _them."_ That was the Shadow. Adult man, smug-sounding.

 _"Really?"_ Akechi said. _"I can believe Shido-san having one or two crooked judges, but eleven?"_

 _"Absolutely!"_ said the Shadow, and rattled off a bunch of names.

There was a silence, apart from the low thrum of Mementos, and then Akechi said, _"That's fifteen."_

"He's… asking it questions?" Futaba whispered. "What's he doing that for?"

 _"Oh, well… Takenaka, Abe, Suzuki, and Oshiro we haven't confirmed yet. The director wasn't actually_ bribing _them, only conspiring illegally, so it would be harder to prove for blackmail — well, that's true of another three, too, but these four he didn't consider sure things. They only want to bend the rules when it fits their own agendas, and Shido-san is still evaluating how compatible they are."_

Another pause. _"Which three were being outright bribed?"_

The Shadow gave not only the names, but the usual price windows. One of them was a _lot_ more expensive than the other two. 

_"All right. Back to the SIU. Is Shido pushing any personnel changes?"_

"He's definitely asking the Shadow about what… you-know-who is doing," Futaba said, puzzled.

" _I_ don't know who," Hifumi said.

"Well—" Yusuke started, before Futaba clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shhh! I'm missing it!"

She'd missed the response entirely, and Akechi was talking again. _"Then what's the point of the_ observers _poking around the junior prosecutors?"_

_"Looking for good candidates to work for Shido-san directly, of course! The director is too independent, we can only trust him so far — we have a few prosecutors already, but more would be useful."_

There was a faint clanging noise. _"You have prosecutors already? Who?"_

Four more names, and another silence. Except — was that a faint scratching noise? Was Akechi _writing things down_?

 _"But you don't know anything about any machinations within the SIU?"_ She'd never heard so much open annoyance in Akechi's voice. 

_"Ha, no, no need to worry about that."_

_"Great. I don't suppose you've found out what the hell is going on with the sudden move into school sponsorship?"_

_"Community engagement is good for the image and-"_

_"Yeah, right. You've been a wellspring of information I wasn't looking for, Ito, very unhelpful, thanks a lot, I hope you choke on Shido's shoe polish and your upstairs neighbor floods their shower again."_

"I think he's coming out," Futaba hissed. "Let's go!"

They ran the rest of the way back to the entrance, and after hasty discussion, got on a train to Shinjuku.

It was only about noon, so at least that much had gone according to plan.

* * *

"I can't _believe_ I _forgot_ about Akechi," Futaba muttered, not for the first time. Or the tenth, probably.

They were in a restaurant in Shinjuku, nominally eating lunch. Yusuke was indeed eating, in between attempting to explain Akechi to Hifumi, which had expanded into trying to explain Shido. Hifumi, understandably enough, looked concerned.

Futaba was on her laptop, trying to look up what the fuck Akechi had been up to and growing increasingly frazzled at the _lack of anything_. Or at least, lack of Detective Prince — the only hits were years old and about someone else entirely — and lack of mental shutdowns. Of course she couldn't _remember_ how much of either there should have been at this point… definitely some mental shutdowns by now. In fact… what was the name of that politician guy who'd had the mental shutdown in September? One of the first times that term showed up in the news stories?

…He hadn't had a mental shutdown. He _had_ died in a car accident. Same month.

Huh.

There _were_ psychotic breakdowns showing up, though. A lot of them. Maybe more than there had been before, but she remembered the numbers on these even less, so who knew.

"Arrrggghhhh!" Futaba said finally. "This makes no sense. We should just — stay out of Mementos, for now. _Damn_ it." And damn it, but she was _glad_ she hadn't remembered Akechi would be around until _after_ they took care of her uncle, and Hifumi's mother and Kana's parents were still down there—

"That does seem to make the most sense," Hifumi said. She sighed. "Do you think we could go back to the museum, instead? Or even the arena? Though I don't know that Sato-sensei is really doing much _harm_ …"

"Probably the museum," Futaba said. "Maybe we can get that door open if Medjed tells him they know what's behind it… But for now, I want to get to the hospital."

* * *

That day she was exhausted from Mementos and still trying to settle Akechi-rattled nerves, and the next several days _everyone_ had to deal with Uncle Yoji's change of heart, which was… noisy. And he was willing to relinquish custody to Sojiro, but that was additionally complicated because there _wasn't_ custody involved because her mother _wasn't dead_ , it was _guardianship_ which was in question, and auuggghhh, this law stuff was needlessly complicated.

Sojiro proposed that he would move into the apartment rather than displace Futaba in the middle of the school year. When the end of the school year came… well, they'd see where things stood then. He might be changing jobs and residences anyway…

Futaba agreed that was a good idea, resisted the temptation to say anything about coffeeshops, and made sure it was still okay for Yusuke and his senpai to stick around until Madarame got his ass in gear and paid the damn electric bill. So that was fine.

On the thirtieth, though, Futaba opened up her drug research again and realized a nonfatal opioid overdose didn't cause _indefinite_ unconsciousness, and her mother really should be waking up by now. 

"There's no sign of brain damage," Sojiro said when she confronted him. "There's brain activity, even. It's not a coma. So I've… there's no reason she _can't_ wake up at any time, as far as they can tell, so I haven't wanted to… I'm sorry."

"Something else in the 'designer stimulant'?" Futaba asked bitterly.

"Not that they've detected, but that does seem likeliest… Unless there's something _ongoing_." He grimaced. "So I may be camping out in the hospital some more…"

Futaba wondered, though. 

It wasn't a mental shutdown. All sorts of… brain stuff happened that had nothing to do with the Metaverse.

But. 

Alone in her room, Futaba found herself reaching for her phone and bringing up the app. "Wakaba Isshiki."

_"Candidate found."_

Because she must have had a Shadow, before, in order to have a mental shutdown. And the last six months were unlikely to have improved things. 

"Mementos."

_"Candidate not found."_

All right then. "Wakaba Isshiki. Cognitive psience labs."

_"Candidate found."_

Okay, now the hard part. "Castle."

_"Candidate not found."_

"Laboratory."

_"Candidate not found."_

Ugh, of course not, it was already a laboratory, that wouldn't be a distortion. What did her mom think about her work? Especially lately? She'd seemed so beleaguered… "A fortress."

_"Candidate not found."_

"A bunker."

_"Candidate not found."_

"A battle."

_"Candidate not found."_

Or had she felt trapped? "A prison."

_"Candidate not found."_

She hadn't been willing to let go of the research… it was _important_ …

"…A temple."

_"Candidate found."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mwahahahahahahaha


	7. The Temple of Doom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have done more probably pointless research for this chapter... Yeah anyway if you haven't read the previous chapter since I posted it I made a few edits since then, so you might want to reread the end. Also I changed Hifumi's codename because I was apparently asleep when I came up with it.
> 
> Without further ado: Oracle & Fox & Shade & the Temple of Hopefully-Not-Doom.

**Group Chat:**

FI: what are your new years eve plans looking like  
FI: just found out my mom has a palace and i would like to check it out asap  
YK: !  
FI: yeah. cognitive psience labs. temple.  
FI: though i guess that doesn't do you any good since you don't have a grown-up phone  
HT: Well  
HT: I'm expected at home tonight, my father wants to do a shrine visit, but nothing before that  
HT: They'll be surprised at me going out this early on a holiday, but it shouldn't be a problem.  
YK: You know what my plans are.  
YK: Television. Unless Hitoshi-senpai has a sudden energy surge and wants to do a shrine visit, but I don't think that's likely the way he's been sneezing.  
YK: Are you sure Sakura-san won't want to do something?  
FI: i'm sure he SHOULDN'T  
FI: he should be Extra Watchful at the hospital because people might be distracted

* * *

The cognitive psience labs didn't look like much from the outside — just another office building, really. Fortunately, Hifumi knew how to use maps on her phone and successfully met them there.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Yusuke asked, staring at the building.

"Yup," Futaba said. "I've been in as far as the lobby… more than a year ago, now. Before things started getting so weird there." She glanced at Hifumi. "I need to tell you the rest of the background on this at some point… but right now I really want to see the Palace."

* * *

The temple was beautiful. 

Well, the temple looked like someone had stacked the Jizo Hall on top of the Parthenon on top of a Mayan pyramid. And Yusuke sort of cringed at the sight, but who asked him. It was her mother's temple, and even if it represented a distortion, it meant her mother was okay enough to have a distortion. And the mix of styles was cool anyway. 

"Do you think we could go up the pyramid stairs and straight into the Greek part, or would we need to go inside?" Hifumi wondered. "I don't _see_ anything that would make the stairs impassible…"

Right, that was her cue. "I think… hmm. There aren't any Shadows on the exterior, but… I think there might be traps. Then again, I'm sure there are traps inside, too…" Wait. "There are… yeah, those are cognitions. There are cognitions scaling the pyramid, off to the left."

The cognitions were wearing dark business suits. And pith helmets. As they watched, one of them stepped on a stone which gave way and dumped him down into the pyramid's interior before spinning back into place.

"And there would be a trap," Yusuke said. "What are they cognitions _of_ , do you think?" A jet of flame shot out of the pyramid and took out another cognition. "Something that's not welcome in the temple, evidently…"

"Going up the side to the temple is looking like _not_ such a good idea, then," Hifumi said. "Drat."

"Go to the temple? But you can't!" said an almost-familiar voice. All three of them spun to see—

"Oh, no," Futaba said. "No. This isn't happening."

Cognitive Futaba was wearing a… something that was cross between a Greek drape dress thing and her middle school uniform, and hugging a laptop. "You shouldn't go in the temple," she said. "It's not safe."

"I don't think my eyes are that big," Futaba said. "And I do not sound like that." Except everyone's voice sounded different from outside, right… She was sure about the eyes, though.

"Why isn't it safe?" Hifumi asked. "Is it Shadows?"

Cognitive Futaba rolled her eyes. "The _raiders_. They're trying to steal the temple's treasures."

…Shido's people trying to steal the cognitive psience research. Futaba felt like Mona might have said something about them not being _proper_ thieves, but couldn't come up with a good argument herself at the moment.

"So the temple isn't safe. The high priestess sent everyone away, and she's locked herself in the heart of the temple to defend it to the _last_." Cognitive Futaba nodded firmly, then slumped. "It's necessary, but I'm _sad_."

"I think I've been a little bit _too_ uncomplaining lately," Actual Futaba muttered. "Does that sound to anyone else like her Shadow isn't letting her wake up because it — she — because at least one of them thinks it's necessary to protect the… the research?" Was the temple's treasure the _Palace_ 's Treasure? All too likely…

Hifumi nodded. "I don't know if we could say that for sure, but…"

Yusuke frowned. "But… would that work? He _got_ the research last time, and he obviously didn't need her awake then…"

"That's why it's a _distortion_ , Fox." Of course… "And she might have taken more precautions, this time. But I don't think staying unconscious indefinitely is a good idea anyway." With a sigh, she turned to Cognitive Futaba. "Do you know how we could get in to see… the High Priestess?"

The cognition shook her head fiercely. "She's not seeing anyone. And you mustn't go in! It's not _safe_!"

"Yeah, we'll… come back later."

* * *

Hifumi seemed a little disappointed they hadn't gotten to fight anything, but Yusuke explained that wasn't too unusual for an initial scouting trip. There would more than likely be _plenty_ of fighting in the future.

* * *

All things considered Futaba had had worse December 31s. This one in the original timeline, for example, had been miserable. Sojiro had custody of her by that time and he'd _tried_ to make it as non-awful as possible, but that… wasn't very possible. The year after that had been… The worst of the raw pain had been past, but the depression had its claws in — she'd had her Palace by then, she thought.

So, food and New Year's Eve television with Inari and his senpai wasn't too bad.

"About the Palace," Yusuke said finally. "Do you want to… What _do_ you want to do?"

Futaba had been thinking about it. "I want to talk to her Shadow," she said firmly (but quietly). "Maybe talk her around. Like Sae-san. Or if she even has a _good_ reason to stay unconscious that we haven't thought of, that would give her a chance to explain." She bit her lip for a moment. "I… it feels… I don't want to steal the Treasure if we can avoid it. It's… I… I just don't."

Because maybe the cognitive psience research was _too_ important to Wakaba, sucking up time and energy and attention that she'd be better off distributing more evenly. The Palace certainly argued that. It was a distorted desire. She needed to dial it back a bit.

But to take it away entirely? Destroy her mother's _passion_ entirely? 

"If it's the only way to wake her up and she doesn't have a good reason to stay unconscious," Futaba said. "I'm not… ruling it out completely. But. Let's not… plan on it. Just yet."

Yusuke nodded. "Unfortunately I doubt the temple's guardians will be willing to take our words for it."

Considering some of the shit Futaba's Shadow had pulled after she actively, deliberately invited the Thieves in? Yeah, there was not going to be a welcome mat. "So you're… okay with this? With checking out Mom's Palace, not trying to beat Madarame's? I know the door is an issue, but I have a couple ideas to get around that…"

"No, this is… fine. The situation with Sensei is under control." At her skeptical look, he added, "Or at least out of control in a known and predictable way."

"Ha, fair enough. And it seems like Hifumi wants to be doing _something_ even if her mother's Shadow is out of reach, so…"

"So the temple. When we can coordinate it."

"Yeah." Or— "Actually, the _first_ thing we should do is hit the museum and get the loot from that treasure demon. This Palace is not going to be easy and I'm the only one of us with any healing or recovery abilities and we need to get some supplies."

"True. You saw the bandage supply—" Yusuke broke off as his phone rang.

"Bandages nothing, there are—"

"It's Sensei," Yusuke interrupted.

Futaba shut up, and resisted the urge to try to distract Yusuke by making rude gestures at the phone. Ugh.

"Yes," Yusuke said after listening for a while. Kiyomi had muted the television. "No, Sensei. Ah, you may have noticed, the electricity has been cut off? The bill was overdue. It has been out for several days now, so we have been staying — elsewhere." He paused. "No, Sensei. Kiyomi-senpai thought you might have set money aside for it, but we couldn't find it."

Had he actually had the nerve to ask why his students hadn't paid the bill?

"Also I think something fell through with the repairperson for the hot water heater. They never came, so that isn't working, either."

What a sleazy cheapskate.

"No, Sensei, we will be fine until you can get everything straightened out. Thank you for the concern. But we weren't expecting you back until the second — did something happen at the retreat?" A long pause. "I'm sorry to hear that, Sensei. You should… indulge in a hotel and relax. Yes. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a good New Year." He hung up, and glared at the couch. "Thank you so much for the assistance, senpai."

"You did fine, Yusuke-kun," Kiyomi said. "What did he say about leaving the, ah, retreat?"

Yusuke heaved a deep sigh. "Someone — a 'jumped-up salaryman' — set fire to the _buffet_."

Hitoshi fell off the couch laughing.

* * *

The next two weeks were… busy. Yusuke and his senpai returned 'home'. Sojiro moved in, while still trying to keep close tabs on the hospital. And Futaba started preparing for some intense Palace activity — she might not have much experience leading people, but she knew how to prep for a dungeon raid.

And she'd been curious and nosy! She knew how to make lockpicks and she was pretty sure she knew how to make Stealthanol and Goho-Ms; they just needed to get the supplies for them.

**Group chat:**

YK: Is everyone able to go after the museum treasure demon tomorrow?  
HT: Yes!  
FI: yep  
FI: also want to look for tin clasps and silk yarn  
HT: Are those things Shadows drop? Do you know where to sell them?  
FI: no, but i can probably make lockpicks with them  
FI: or actually yes i might know where to sell them but lockpicks first  
FI: and Goho-Ms

Futaba also knew quite a lot about where Akira had gone for supplies. Weapons were from a somewhat sketchy airsoft shop in Shibuya — that was where he'd sold the junk from Palaces, too. The most effective medicines were from Dr. Takemi, in the somewhat sketchy clinic in Yongen-Jaya. 

The airsoft shop should be okay, she thought — at any rate Hifumi or Yusuke should be able to get away with buying swords or polearms or bows there, even as middle school students. Yusuke's preferred guns might be a bit harder to explain.

**Group chat:**

FI: who wants to go to the scary airsoft shop to get weapons?  
YK: …  
HT: …  
FI: dont everyone volunteer at once  
FI: if no one wants to its on you inari  
FI: because its in shibuya  
YK: …

…It turned out the guns weren't hard to explain at all, if Yusuke claimed everything was needed for art references.

Dr. Takemi might be more difficult. Akira had done some sort of drug tests for her, to get her to sell him the weird stuff? Futaba didn't know if she wanted to do that… or if there was any way she could hide that from Sojiro… or if Dr. Takemi would even _agree_ to that with a middle school girl and not a high school boy. And possibly Futaba should be staying far away from all that given the supposed designer stimulant situation. Damn. 

She tried to get Yusuke to go instead — stupid Inari could probably do with a checkup anyway — but he was not very cooperative.

**Group chat:**

FI: ok what about sacramental wine from that church  
FI: that could work too  
HT: …  
FI: really!  
HT: …  
FI: inari, tell her!  
YK: I do remember wine one time… is that where it was from?  
FI: what you thought just random wine could compete with leblanc coffee and curry?  
YK: all those vending machine drinks seemed very random  
HT: …

Her mother didn't wake up. Futaba was too unsurprised to be disappointed. She wished she could tell Sojiro it wasn't from some foul play at the hospital that he was failing to prevent, but she didn't think she could afford to let him know what she was getting into.

He was still at the hospital a lot of the time, but he wanted to know what she was _doing_. She didn't remember him being nearly this fussy in the future. (Although he'd probably just been grateful she was leaving her room. And she had been two years older. And usually with Akira.) Futaba introduced him to Hifumi as soon as she got a chance, and that helped, but she still had to come up with _explanations_ about what she was doing all day. It was awkward.

**Group chat:**

FI: where we were yesterday  
FI: i cant say we went to the arcade again i told him you both hated it  
HT: I took you to a bookstore in Jinbocho?  
FI: that works  
FI: and we almost lost yusuke when he got distracted with art books  
YK: We could go to the planetarium for our next imaginary excursion

And _school_ started again. Luckily Futaba wasn't in any clubs, but it was still a nuisance. Even more luckily, both Yusuke and Hifumi were already decided on going to Kosei and didn't have to worry about the public high school entrance exams. Futaba was barely aware of the activities of most of her classmates, and she could still tell half the class ahead of hers was going _insane_.

**Group chat:**

FI: ok, im done making tools  
FI: and you guys refuse to get the really effective recovery items  
YK: You say that like it would be easy  
FI: what about vending machine stuff and weapons?  
HT: Done  
HT: As much as we can afford at least  
HT: What controls how much money you can get from Shadows?  
FI: not sure  
FI: anyway  
FI: set for tomorrow?  
YK: Agreed  
HT: Agreed!

* * *

They unanimously decided to try to go up the outside of the pyramid, on the grounds that there were probably traps _and_ Shadows inside. Futaba felt obliged to point out there was probably also a safe room or two inside, meaning they wouldn't have to do the entire thing in one go, but she preferred to try the outside, too. It seemed like it would be considerably faster. 

Between Futaba and Yusuke, who was actually pretty observant when he was paying attention, they spotted and avoided all the trick stones that would have dumped them down inside the pyramid. The flamethrowers, unfortunately, turned out to be triggered by smashing any of the loot-containing urns. Yusuke was really good at evading the fire at the last moment, but Hifumi nearly got barbecued several times and ended up wearing most of their bandages. 

"Seriously, look into that wine," Futaba advised. "And you really should check out that clinic, Fox."

Near the top, the vines climbing the pyramid started to conceal snakes. Fortunately, it turned out none of them had any irrational fear of snakes. Unfortunately, it turned out you could get poisoned by Metaverse snakes. Futaba hadn't even known the Metaverse _did_ poison. And what the hell kind of ailment lingered outside of a fight?!

"Stop showing off, Mom," she muttered under her breath. 

Hifumi _apparently_ had some sort of poison _resistance_ , which Futaba guessed fit the ninja theme at least. It was hitting Yusuke a little harder, but he had more health to begin with, so he was doing okay. Futaba hadn't been bitten, even though she hadn't been in Prometheus at the time. 

Finally, they made it to the top of the stairs. Hifumi called a halt to apply more bandages and regroup, and snipe at a few cognitive tomb raiders who seemed to be trying to trace their steps for a safe route. 

"There's a safe room almost just inside," Futaba said, after scanning the Parthenon-face. "And a Shadow just before that. Stronger than Uncle Yoji or most of what we've been running into in the museum, I think, but not _super_ strong… Maybe about space station level? A little weaker?" Yusuke made a funny maybe-laugh sound. "What?"

"That would be… pyramid level?"

All right, that _was_ a weird sort of funny. 

"The pyramid was your Palace, right?" Hifumi said. 

"Right. So. Are we ready?"

Hifumi and Yusuke exchanges glances, and nodded. 

The Shadow was a menacing-looking temple guard which almost gave Futaba a heart attack when it turned into _two Guard Dogs of Hades_.

"I remember those from the _cruise ship_!" Yusuke cried. 

"I know! But they really are weaker than that!" Quick check— "Still weak to ice, and they have fire!"

"Why aren't the fire ones ever weak to _me_?" Hifumi griped. "I'd better just guard unless I see an opening."

The damn things were _durable_ , and Yusuke could have been in deep trouble without his fire evasion. As it was the fire attacks connected less than half the time, and he managed to reflect a couple of the physical attacks, so he did okay. Hifumi was silently grinding her teeth at having to hang back, but she did get to land the finishing blow after Yusuke knocked the second guard dog down. 

They picked up the loot and staggered into the safe room, and collapsed on elaborate marble benches that sometimes blurred into break room furniture. 

"So!" Hifumi said brightly. "We _can_ climb the exterior of the pyramid."

"And we did," Futaba agreed. "Go us."

Yusuke picked at a bandage. "Am I still being poisoned?"

"I don't think so."

* * *

**Group chat:**

HT: Something that should help with scheduling  
HT: I've decided to stop competing formally for the rest of the year.  
FI: !  
YK: You don't have to do that  
HT: I want to do that  
HT: I'm paranoid about everything  
HT: I think about competing and I just feel dread  
YK: …  
YK: I'm sorry  
HT: Don't be sorry you told me the truth  
HT: I told the league that I will be taking a year to adjust to high school and find my proper state of mind so I can give competitive shogi the attention it deserves  
HT: They said that was very mature and told me where to sign up when I came back  
FI: how'd your mom take it  
HT: …  
HT: Not well  
HT: I may have to learn how to sneak out  
FI: ugh that sucks  
FI: not sure i can offer much advice  
FI: for now can you make it tomorrow after school? Inari thinks he's rested enough…  
HT: Tomorrow should be fine at least  
HT: I think she'll be out all day

* * *

"I looked up Greek temples and they are only supposed to have one or two rooms," Yusuke said as they exited the safe room. "Not hallways like this." He paused. "Although I suppose _technically_ that wall is closely spaced columns…"

"Somehow I don't think Mom's subconscious was researching ancient Greek architecture to make sure her Palace would be historically accurate," Futaba said, and reached for Prometheus. "There's a Shadow around that corner, not quite as strong as the one that turned into the Guard Dogs… We should be able to ambush it if we time it right."

They did time it right. It turned into a Thief of Tablets and two Boastful Cowards.

"The bird thing drains Wind," Futaba warned. Hifumi made a disgruntled noise. "The warrior guys I don't have data on!"

The warrior guys turned out to be _weak_ to Wind, to Hifumi's obvious glee, and only attacked melee. The Thief of Tablets used Wind attacks, too, but with Hifumi's resistance and Yusuke's over-leveledness, said attacks didn't do a lot of damage. Not bad!

They made their way down another hallway with one side made of columns, taking cover behind marble statues labeled _Jung_ and _Pravdich-Neminsky_ and _Takeba_ , smashing open Greek urns for loot, ambushing another temple guard that turned into Chanting Baboons. There was a treasure chest. They darted through an open area with altars and a stronger Shadow only to find the hallway they chose instead dead-ended, though at least there were a few more chests and some more Boastful Cowards.

The stronger Shadow, to Yusuke's undisguised horror, turned into a Hedonistic Braggart — considerably weaker than its counterparts they'd faced in the Mementos Depths, but _still_!

They beat it, but not without going through most of the rest of their bandages and the Life Stone they just found. Futaba sighed. "I think we'd better stop for the day — come back tomorrow, if we can all make it. And hope it doesn't respawn."

* * *

YK: Did Hifumi seem like she was wearing more makeup today?  
FI: how the hell would i know?  
FI: …  
FI: why  
YK: Well  
YK: I'm not an expert either, but as we were leaving she seemed to have something smearing on the side of her face, near her jaw  
FI: …  
YK: I am probably just being paranoid, but  
YK: The day after her mother 'took something badly'?  
FI: shiiiiiiiiiiiit  
FI: she hasn't been violent before has she?  
YK: Not that I know of.  
YK: But…  
FI: but people can get worse sometimes  
YK: …  
FI: …  
YK: I guess we keep an eye on it?  
FI: yeah  
FI: we keep an eye on it

* * *

The Hedonistic Braggart hadn't respawned when they made it back a few days later, though they had to clear out a few Foolish Monks before they could safely inspect the room. It had column pseudo-walls on three sides. The fourth side had a real wall, with a large marble statue standing in front of it — a vague-featured person in a labcoat.

There was a door behind the statue which proved impossible to open.

"This is going to be a _puzzle_ , isn't it," Yusuke said.

"Seems likely." Futaba cracked her knuckles.

The rest of the room held eight… probably altars? with random objects on them. And there was a circular hole in the floor, which Prometheus indicated led to _Pyramid Level Five_.

The door was unlocked, in the end, by putting the right objects on the right altars, in a pattern identified by — as suggested by the carvings around the plinth of the main statue — _matrix multiplication_. Yusuke looked like he wanted to cry and even Hifumi went a bit cross-eyed, but Futaba triumphed! The other two triumphed, too, over the cognitive tomb raiders who emerged from the circular hole and attacked them while they were in the middle of shifting boxes of incense.

"Hang on, these guys dropped more money than the Shadows did, and they weren't very tough," Futaba said afterwards. "…I hate to delay, but we should probably kill a little more time here."

* * *

**Group chat:**

HT: I'm grounded for the weekend.  
HT: I can likely get away again on Monday, though.  
FI: what for?  
HT: Mostly for being rude  
HT: In the arguments we had.  
YK: Let us know if there is anything we can do to help…  
HT: It's under control.  
HT: Don't worry about me, how are things with your leech of a teacher?  
FI: hee  
YK: It's under control  
FI: …  
YK: Really  
YK: University entrance exams are this weekend  
YK: Sensei has been sensibly lying low  
FI: i see  
FI: should i ask about your senpai?  
YK: Probably not  
YK: But it would not be a bad idea for me to be around all weekend also  
YK: In case… whatever  
FI: fair enough  
FI: i will find computer stuff to do

* * *

The computer stuff ended up mostly being another deep sweep for spyware. She still hadn't found anything, and at this point it was most likely there wasn't anything to be found, but still! What sort of conspiracy-beholden corrupt cops saw a computer setup like hers and didn't even try to mess with it? Amateurs!

She also made a few anon posts here and there saying MEDJED: CAN PROBABLY HACK UR BRAIN. Groundwork!

* * *

**Group chat:**

YK: University exams have concluded with no atelier fatalities  
HT: How does she think she did?  
YK: Well enough that she's not panicking about it  
FI: …  
FI: how well does madarame want her to have done?  
YK: He would prefer her not to being pursuing university at all but that's never been on the table  
YK: So he wants her to get into the architecture program in Tokyo she's hoping for, and keep painting for him on evenings and weekends  
HT: I guess he'd have a hard time plagiarizing a building?  
YK: I wouldn't put it past him. But Kiyomi-senpai has probably thought of that.  
FI: well, good luck to her  
FI: retroactive good luck  
FI: are we still on for tomorrow?  
HT: Yes, please, I want to hack something up.

* * *

Inside the little room — adyton, Yusuke said — they found several treasure chests as well as some more… decorative treasure they could use to climb up to the next level. There was one to each side, small enough to be accessways rather than proper doors but perfectly usable. 

Futaba paused halfway through one. "Okay, there's something _big_ roaming this level." She considered. "Big enough that I'd like to avoid it, if we can."

At first it seemed like they'd be able to. The second level was scaffolding around the sides of the temple, between the column-walls and the actual walls, and there were breaks in the columns wide enough that they could step through and stand on the ledge on the other side long enough for The Big Thing to pass by. (It didn't look like just another temple guard — more like a big ape-thing. Was that a clue what it would be if they had to fight it?) A few tomb raider cognitions showed up, climbing the columns somehow, and were quickly stomped. A few more were torn apart by the beast-Shadow before they could get to them. Futaba wondered if that was why there weren't any other Shadows on this level. 

The way to get to the next level was a narrow ladder at the front side of the temple. Just as they were starting to climb, the beast-Shadow apparently _teleported_ from the other side of the temple and ambushed them. 

Unlike the Boastful Cowards, she _had_ seen the Hundred-Armed Slave before. As _one of Akira's Personas_. Which Prometheus didn't have any data stored on — um — what had it— 

She was _damn sure_ Akira's Persona hadn't had any _mass poison attacks_.

Futaba raised her face to the heavens (or at least the ceiling). " _Stop showing off, Mom_!"

* * *

They had to run away. The poison ate through Yusuke's health faster than burns did, _and_ it apparently sometimes caused dizziness! Hifumi wasn't hit nearly as hard by the poison, and landed enough hits for them to see the damn thing _recovered_ — wearing it down slowly wasn't going to be an option. 

"Enough for today," Futaba decided. "Shade, can we talk strategy later? I'll send you all the data I picked up…"

* * *

**Group chat:**

YK: I went by the Takemi clinic  
YK: Dr. Takemi may now be under the impression that Sensei regularly leaves art supplies which give off toxic fumes around the atelier to poison us  
FI: does he not do that?  
YK: But I have acquired quick-acting antipoison treatments and aintidizziness aids  
YK: …  
YK: Not lately  
FI: …  
FI: but thats great about the antipoison stuff  
HT: I do not have anything as exciting to report  
HT: But I have obtained a rope ladder and will be testing the tactical viability of my bedroom window as an exit point  
FI: …  
FI: i disagree thats much more exciting than drug shopping  
YK: You wouldn't say that if you'd met Dr. Takemi  
FI: i HAVE met dr takemi!  
FI: …and alright you may have a point  
YK: Be that as it may, be careful.  
YK: We would rather delay a day than have you injure yourself.  
HT: Not to worry!  
HT: :)  
FI: …  
FI: that is actually making me more worried than i was

* * *

Gathering outside the Palace Thursday after school, they had to use some of the bandages on Hifumi's hands, where she'd scraped them up climbing out her window.

"On the lower part of the roof, actually," she clarified. "The shingles were rougher than I expected. I'll wear gloves in the future."

Yusuke had been by the airsoft shop to get better melee weapons and armor with the money from the tomb raider cognitions. "I tried to balance defense and evasion and attack and accuracy as per instructions, but if you don't like my results, _you get to go back and try again_."

"Fair enough," Hifumi said, hefting her new naginata. "Shall we?"

They had to fight a few Boastful Cowards, Foolish Monks, and tomb raider cognitions en route to the adyton, but none of them were too bad, so that was okay. Then it was up to the scaffolding, and showtime.

This time, _they_ ambushed _it_ — step one.

Although referring to steps was rather misleading since the rest of the plan was basically just hammering at it without pausing except to toss antipoison treatment at Yusuke or Soul Drops or bandages at either of the fighters. Futaba did her best to provide support, and hoped there wasn't something important she'd missed.

The fight seemed to take forever, but they won.

The Hundred-Armed Slave yielded a gratifying amount of money — though less than the tomb raiders! — and phosphorus and mercury as well as one of those magic cards only Akira had been able to do anything with. Futaba snatched it up anyway. 

"Okay," she said. "I _think_ this thing shouldn't come back, so we _could_ quit for the day, or alternatively we could try to make it to the next safe room." She scanned. "It's not right after the ladder, but after the next… section, I think."

Hifumi sighed. "I'm _mentally_ tired, but with all the healing and recovery we were doing… I'm good to go, I think."

Yusuke nodded. "I agree. And we have means of evacuating quickly if necessary, right?"

"Right." Futaba turned to the ladder. "Onwards and upwards."

The ladder led to a _crawlspace_. It was shaped like it was right under the peaked roof of the pseudo-Parthenon, but instead of going straight across like it should have there were all sorts of twists and turns.

"I almost miss the mouse transformation," Yusuke said.

"I think you left that part out," Hifumi said.

"Unless you _wanted_ to try fighting as a mouse, don't miss it," Futaba said. "There are Shadows… yeah, I'm picking up four of them. Not very strong, but I don't think we'll be able to avoid them."

The only good thing to be said about fighting Shadows on hands and knees was that none of the ones they got were quadrupeds, so at least they looked really awkward, too. And there were at least six decent treasure chests to console them. 

At the far end of the crawlspace-labyrinth there was a safe room — _finally_ — and then another ladder, leading — when they peeked — to a complete architectural shift. 

"I guess from here we enter the pagoda part of the Palace," Futaba said. "Nobody tell me this isn't how Buddhist temples are laid out, I can figure that out myself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That felt like it ended kind of abruptly but I think it _is_ where the chapter wants to end...
> 
>  
> 
> [Boastful Coward](http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Ares). [Hundred-Armed Slave](http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Hecatoncheir). The main reason these guys are here is that too many of my first choice Shadows for this Palace weren't vulnerable to Wind, which seemed really unfair to Hifumi. Also! Please note that while poison isn't a thing in P5, Hecatoncheir has an attack called Foul Breath which really sounds like it could be poison, doesn't it?


	8. The Temple of Obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of feel like this chapter should be merged with either the preceding chapter or the following chapter... but the following chapter isn't written yet and I wanna post nowwwww...
> 
> Here's something I spent too much time on: [partial Palace map](https://imgur.com/qAFPeg0).
> 
> And fair warning, this chapter ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. okay actually it's completely a cliffhanger. sorry.

They took a day off to recover. Futaba fell asleep in class, but fortunately the teachers were still cutting her a little slack over her mother's hospitalization.

She made hospital visiting hours. Sojiro was apparently slowly but surely alienating all the nurses with his paranoia, and still hadn't caught anyone drugging Wakaba.

Futaba winced. That was her fault. "What if… it wasn't a drug, exactly? What if it was something…" She waved a hand vaguely, hoping to imply _mysterious cognitive psience research stuff_.

Sojiro grimaced. "I'd kind of prefer it to be something I could actually do something about."

…Fair enough.

When Sojiro had slipped away, Futaba leaned in close. "Mom, your Palace is awesome, but you can cut out the poison any time now. Really."

No reply, unsurprisingly.

Futaba rested her head on the pillow, and listened to the oxygen machine. "What are you so afraid is going to happen if you wake up, anyway?"

* * *

Instead of pressing onwards their next time in the temple, Futaba took them back to the room with the hole in the floor to farm more tomb raiders and get cash. (Should she be calling it farming? It really _was_ …)

She stopped everyone in the Palace entryway on the way out. "Get more anti-poison treatments," she instructed, passing a good quarter of the money to Yusuke. After a pause, she added another quarter. "And at least _try_ to get her to sell you the takemedic stuff? Only don't call it that, I'm not completely sure she's developed it."

"How am I supposed to ask after it without naming it?" Yusuke asked.

"I don't know, be creative." Okay, that wasn't fair. "I think Joker told her he needed something to help him study…?"

"Hmm."

Futaba paused with more cash in hand. "Shade, I'm assuming you still won't go after the sacramental wine—"

"I _can't_ 'go after' the sacramental wine—"

"—But are you up for arginade-hunting? I can text you some likely locations…"'

Hifumi hesitated a long moment. "I…"

"I can if you can't, I was just hoping to spend some more time in the hospital — wait, that wasn't supposed to be a guilt trip—"

"I have time," Hifumi said. "I might not even need to sneak out, but I…" She trailed off, then finished in a rush, "I may not have train fare."

"…Because your mother cut your spending money," Futaba said. She should have seen _that_ coming.

…Better than hitting her, anyway. Might actually qualify as an acceptable parent thing to do? Who knew, everyone Futaba knew was weird.

"Why didn't you say something?" Yusuke asked.

"People who didn't tell other people they spent all their money on cuttlefish until they've been living on bean sprouts for a week don't get to throw stones."

"I did not—"

Futaba waved him off, and pushed the rest of the cash at Hifumi. "Get the arginade, and keep the rest. If you're scraping for train fare you need a rainy day fund."

"No, I couldn't possibly—"

"Sure you can. …Assuming you have somewhere safe to keep it, at least."

Hifumi was flushed, but finally accepted the money. "I will pay you back as soon as I can."

"Just consider it wages for all the work you're doing."

"In that case, you two should take some for personal spending, too." Hifumi split the money into four, and handed some back to Futaba and some to Yusuke. "And I'll use this part for vending machines."

"Fine," Futaba grumbled. That did not give Hifumi nearly as much of a rainy day fund as she'd been hoping, but it would cover train fare at least. Yusuke could probably really use it, too, actually. And Futaba… well, she could work on saving up for that external drive.

* * *

**Group chat:**

YK: Saw Dr. Takemi  
YK: Was not able to obtain any 'takemedic stuff', but she was willing to sell me some doses of a medicine which I recall we used earlier on  
YK: Unfortunately I am not sure what exactly she thinks Sensei does now  
YK: I attempted to reassure her that I did not need the medicine because of Sensei, but I do not think it worked  
FI: yeah tbh i get that way back you covered pretty well by being snobby and kinda creepy and going on about how his art is the best art until whoever you were talking to just wanted to leave  
FI: but when you're being a non-snobby non-creepy person you really suck at convincing anyone your living situation isnt super messed up  
YK: …  
HT: I wouldn't put it that way exactly  
HT: But  
HT: Hmmm  
HT: Something about the way you dismiss things without denying them leads one to believe you're concealing something worse?  
YK: …  
HT: And 'enormous decades-long plagiarism racket' is less obvious an explanation than a teacher mistreating his students more severely than the blatant neglect you admit to  
YK: I see  
YK: Perhaps I should ask Hitoshi-senpai how he conceals things from his grandmother  
FI: Back to the Palace day after tomorrow?

* * *

Prometheus finished scanning, and Futaba groaned. "We're in the northeast corner, and my best guess for access upwards," she pointed at the underside of the wooden walkway six meters up, "is right in the middle. Which I think is farther from here than it should be considering this place's footprint _shouldn't_ be any bigger than the Parthenon-part. As for the floor overall, not only is it a maze, it's a _shifting_ maze. _Lovely_. _Stop showing off_ , Mom."

"All the interior walls — well, partitions — I can see from here look like unusually tall _fusuma_ , so it would make sense that they move," Hifumi said.

The _fusuma_ closest to them, at least, were covered in equations. Futaba assumed they were cognitive-psience-related equations?

"Could we break through them, do you think?" Yusuke said.

"Um… probably not without attracting a lot of attention. I'm picking up a bunch of roaming Shadows on this level, including at least one notably strong one, aaaaaand… I think a pretty heavy-duty cognition. We should probably try to keep our heads down."

"I still don't understand what determines how cognitions work," Yusuke complained as they made their way along the north wall towards a visible gap in the _fusuma_. "Some of them fight, like the robots, or Shido's Akechi, or… the Sphinx. But in the casino and the bank, and from what I understand the castle, all the guards were Shadows and the cognitions were just… decorative, and Sensei's cognitions aren't even _animate_."

"Hmm, good question." Futaba wished she'd seen the cognitions in the bank or the castle herself to have more of a basis for comparison. "Well, my Palace was weird— Hang on, I should be paying attention, there's something funny about the floor through there."

They stared at the floor for a bit. It _looked_ innocuous enough. Just as Futaba was about to decide they'd have to risk it, another gap opened up further down, so they went that way.

It became apparent pretty quickly that the maze aspect wasn't really the issue — the panels slid around constantly, and if you waited a while whatever was blocking your way would probably move. The issue was navigating while avoiding suspicious floor patches and not being surprised by Shadows.

The first Shadow they ambushed was a distorted monk who turned into a pair of Foolish Monks and a Floodbringer Demon, the latter of which was unfamiliar.

"I remember that one from the bank—" Yusuke said.

"Oh, good."

"—I remember because it drains ice."

"Oh, crap."

"No mass magic attacks for Fox," Hifumi said. "All right… If we take it out, you should be able to take out the other two with ice fast, so let's go."

They managed that fight fine, though the Floodbringer Demon was probably stronger than its bank counterparts, and three more fights after that. They wouldn't have without the arginades and Recov-Rs, but that was the whole point of having them. (The Demonic Warrior was also probably stronger than its bank counterpart, and the poison attack was definitely new.) Two fights after that they were starting to tire, and then they were a little careless ducking away from a Shadow and found out the hard way that the suspicious floor patches were _nightingale floors_. The security level shot up.

"Oh, damn—"

And all the _fusuma_ slid apart at once, leaving a clear shot between them and the center of the temple, where—

"Isn't that your temporary guardian?" Hifumi wondered.

"Yes," Futaba said. "Goho-M. _Now_."

* * *

**Group chat:**

FI: i dont wanna fight Cognitive Sojiro  
FI: i really really really dont  
YK: Neither do I  
HT: …  
HT: I'm not sure I understand  
HT: We understood going in we will probably fight your mother's Shadow, and this is just a cognition?  
YK: It's not a question of sentiment  
YK: I just anticipate he would be a very, very challenging opponent  
FI: and idk how much inari told you about the sphinx in my palace?  
HT: He didn't.  
YK: Apologies, it seemed inconsiderate under the circumstances.  
FI: that was what we had to fight at the end, not my shadow, because my shadow was trying to help me  
FI: the sphinx was my distorted cognition of my mother  
FI: very distorted  
FI: very very distorted  
FI: because i was blaming myself for her dying and thought she must blame me too  
FI: ANYWAY  
FI: but anyway it was just as hard to fight as the big palace-owning shadows are  
YK: Yes  
FI: and we never actually fought cognitive akechi but i scanned him and he would not have been a pushover  
YK: Hmm  
YK: Maybe  
HT: Maybe what?  
YK: Never mind  
FI: What?  
YK: It occurred to me that your Palace was abnormal, and the cruise ship was also abnormal  
YK: It was the only one that had OTHER PEOPLE'S SHADOWS in it  
YK: So they had that in common, and both you and Shido knowing at least a little about cognitive psience in common  
YK: Since he stole the research  
YK: And also powerful cognitions in common. Didn't Cognitive Akechi indicate he'd been created deliberately, even?  
FI: true  
FI: but the robots  
YK: Yes  
YK: That was why I said never mind  
FI: …  
FI: although i guess we dont know for CERTAIN shido never told okumura about cognitive psience  
FI: it doesnt seem likely though  
YK: No  
FI: anyway  
FI: that was kind of a digression sorry shade  
HT: No need to apologize, it's very interesting!  
FI: cognitions can be scary  
FI: and sojiro is awesome and i love him but he has a scary job  
HT: ???  
YK: Government security of some description  
FI: and mom probably knows more about his scary job than me so  
FI: Cognitive Sojiro is going to be REALLY SCARY  
FI: …  
FI: i wonder if i can talk him around?  
FI: cognitive me wasn't seen as an enemy at least…  
YK: Yes, but she was very definitely not supposed to be in the temple. If he thinks you're her he might just have you moved outside.  
FI: ugh good point  
FI: …  
FI: i really dont want to have to fight him

**Group chat:**

FI: THE MENTAL SHUTDOWNS  
FI: ok everyone is asleep but i only just thought of this  
FI: all those mental shutdowns to benefit okumura foods  
FI: he knew they were something someone did and he knew shido was arranging them  
FI: he probably didnt know cognitive psience but he knew THAT  
FI: …  
FI: still not sure that has anything to do with cognitions, though  
FI: but if it does  
FI: it means we should REALLY avoid tangling with any of moms  
FI: …  
FI: except those tomb raider types go down like soap bubbles so idk  
FI: id better get some sleep

* * *

Futaba split her attention between detecting patches of nightingale floor and monitoring the movements of Cognitive Sojiro. He _didn't_ stay right in the middle all the time, which was bad because they could theoretically run into him anywhere, and good because it meant there was a chance to get to the next level without having to fight him.

Had she mentioned how much she didn't want to fight Cognitive Sojiro?

"I was hoping he'd have some sort of patrol schedule we could figure out the timing on," she complained as Yusuke opened a treasure chest — he was getting better with lockpicks. "But he doesn't seem to. I think we're just going to have to wait until he leaves the middle part and then run for it."

"And be ready to run away?" Hifumi said.

"Exactly. …Ooohh, is that a bead chain?"

While waiting for Cognitive Sojiro to get out of the way, though, they got jumped by a temple guard that turned into a Floodbringer Demon, Demonic Warrior, and Tornado Devil _all together_. They had to run away again, and probably should have run sooner.

"Okay," Futaba said. "We're not completely wiped. Let's go hunt some tomb raiders, and then we can send Fox to shop for better _ranged_ weapons."

"And restock on remedies," Yusuke said. "And hope the doctor doesn't contact social services."

* * *

They took another few days of downtime, for recovery and shopping and catching up on homework and/or projects for one's demanding plagiarizing mentor. Hifumi wanted to spend time with her father. Futaba went to visiting hours again.

They'd run the tests again, and her mother still had a lot of mysterious brain activity going on. They had not gotten any results back from the police lab that had been supposedly testing the designer stimulant, and they were getting a little annoyed about it.

Futaba wondered if they'd be able to tell the results they eventually got were bogus. Assuming the police lab ever got around to fabricating anything.

"Your subconscious is really aggressive, Mom," she whispered. "Although I guess I'm in no position to talk…"

Something… _felt_ more tense, about her mother's condition. She hoped the Palace infiltration wasn't causing too much additional stress.

* * *

They undertook 'infiltrate the pagoda attempt _three_ ' with fully restocked health and magic restoratives, new and improved range weapons, and new armor. They managed to take out the demon trio Shadow without any terrifying close calls.

And unlike the previous two times, Cognitive Sojiro stayed right by the way up the entire time. Did he know they were there? If he did, why wasn't he attacking? Why had there been a change?

They found a few more treasure chests while maneuvering around the shifting _fusuma_ , so it wasn't a total waste, but it was _frustrating_. And concerning.

"What if we… set something up so it would fall on a patch of nightingale floor while we were somewhere else?" Hifumi asked.

"I don't know… maybe?" Maybe if they tied something to a _fusuma_ …? "I'll consider it ahead of deliberately fighting him, anyway."

"Do you think it's something we need to affect in the real world?" Yusuke wondered. "Maybe… she sees him as always on guard?"

"Except why would it _change_?" Still— "We'll look into that, too."

* * *

Happily they didn't have to, as Cognitive Sojiro was back to roaming around when they came back for Attempt Four. They just had to lurk as close to the middle as they could until he left, hopefully in the other direction, and then—

"Okay, _go_ ," Futaba said, and they ran.

They made it into the middle with plenty of time, but—

"Why so many ladders?" Yusuke complained. "None of the other Palaces had so many ladders."

"I don't know, just hurry, he's started coming back this way—"

"Go ahead—"

"No, I'll go last," Futaba insisted. "It's safest."

She wasn't sure whether she meant because of Prometheus or because Cognitive Sojiro might not try to hurt her, but it was true either way.

They made it. Not with much time to spare, but they made it. Futaba was briefly afraid Cognitive Sojiro would _follow_ them, but it seemed not.

"Now, if we can just get to a safe room so we can avoid going through that _again_."

The walkway went out from where they were in four directions, towards the corners of the building, and it looked like it ran all the way along the outside walls as well. There were only four Shadows, medium-to-strong ones, at the corners and probably sticking there. And a safe room… middle of the north wall, she thought. Impossible to get to without passing the northwest or northeast Shadows. Northeast was the weakest, so…

"That way. Fight one Shadow, then there's a safe room and we can regroup."

One Shadow turned into one thing to fight, which was a pleasant change. The Northeast Guardian was familiar as, again, one of Akira's less-used Personas. (She wondered where exactly he'd _gotten_ them when he hadn't recruited them. She'd asked at one point, but he'd been evasive.) It resisted physical attacks, but Yusuke overkilled it with ice, and then it was an uneventful jog over to the safe room.

"That wasn't so bad," Hifumi said, dropping onto a wooden bench that blurred into a plastic chair.

"I agree, if you mean that last fight," Yusuke said. "Otherwise no. I won't say it was the most terrifying minute of my life, because the other competitors have it outclassed, but it was _not fun_."

"Not a bad turn of phrase, Inari, I might have to steal it." Futaba flopped down on either another bench or a formica tabletop. The cognitive psience labs needed to get better break rooms. "Okay, I didn't look for the way up yet because I was focusing on the safe room. We good for that at least?"

"I'm good for another few fights, I think," Hifumi said. "…Since my _nerves aren't shot_."

"Don't make fun of Fox for his very sensible caution."

Another scan revealed… there was no obvious way up. There must be a _trick_ to it.

"Those Shadows probably aren't stationary for no reason," Hifumi offered. "Should we take a second look at the corner we cleared?"

The corner contained an enormous golden rope pull — the rope was thicker than Futaba's wrist, and felt like it was made of silk.

"Pull?" Futaba asked, just to make sure. "It _probably_ will help gain access to the next level, but there's always the off chance it's a Shadow summons or something." When the other two nodded, she grabbed it and pulled. "…Okay, Fox, you try."

Yusuke actually managed to _move_ the rope pull. Futaba was just going to pretend it was because he had more weight to work with. That was definitely it.

There was a distant… clattering, rumbling noise, and something moved in the shadows — er, darkness — up near the pagoda's roof. Shifted? Futaba adjusted her goggles and zoomed in. "…There's a ladder that lowered a ways down. I think you're right, Shade, each of the Shadows is probably guarding a pull like this, so we'll have to beat them all to get the ladder down."

"This one wasn't too bad—"

"This one was the weakest. If we just follow the edge of the building around clockwise, we'll hit the rest easiest to hardest?"

"Sounds like a plan."

The pattern of one Shadow becoming one combatant continued. Futaba wasn't terribly surprised to find the Southeast and Southwest Guardians had also appeared among Akira's Personas. She was able to correctly predict their weaknesses — wind and ice respectively, which was convenient. Yusuke dealt with the rope pulls, which was fine with Futaba — Hifumi managing them might have been a bit embarrassing. Each one lowered the ladder closer.

"The last one's the strongest," she warned as they were gathering up the loot from the Southwest Guardian's fall. "Like… over twice as strong as Southeast."

"Hmmm…" Hifumi considered. "We still have plenty of restoratives… I'm up for it. Fox?"

He shrugged. "At least it's not a school night."

"Works for me," Futaba said happily. "I don't know why, I've just been feeling more urgent about this the last few days…"

She was afraid being stronger meant multiple entities in a Shadow again, but it was just a notably strong Northwest Guardian. Which was weak to ice. Hifumi had a close call with a physical attack that could have _flattened_ her if it had connected, but it didn't, and Yusuke just kept throwing ice attacks until it went down.

"Okay," Futaba said afterwards. "Fox, you should take— No, never mind, we probably won't stay much longer, no point burning the Snuff Soul. Get the rope?"

And then the ladder was within reach.

"We have to be near the top, don't we?" Hifumi said, looking up into the darkness. "The roof is narrowing up there — there can't be space for more than a loft."

"I don't know," Futaba said. "I agree it _seems_ like we must be close — I don't remember anything on top of the pagoda — but I'm not convinced this place is going to act entirely Euclidean."

"What?"

"Euclidean geometry is normal real-world geometry," Yusuke said, before Futaba could answer.

"Oversimplified, but mostly what I was getting at… how do _you_ know that?"

"Hit— One of my senpai went through a phase of trying to paint non-Euclidean scenes. They never seemed to work out very well in watercolors, and he dropped it when the… inspired period passed."

"Huh." Futaba stared up into the darkness. "…Take a look before we go?"

"Oh, why not. Just a look."

It was a long ladder, and the mechanism for moving it — or supporting it in the first place — wasn't completely obvious. It involved a lot of ropes stretching off into the rafters. Given that, the ladder should not have been completely, immovably stable. Not that any of them were complaining.

About halfway up it became clear the ladder did go into some sort of loft — there was a flat wooden ceiling with a hole for the ladder before the pagoda came to its peak. Futaba tried to scan at it as best as she could manage hanging onto a ladder, but didn't pick up any Shadows in the immediate vicinity. "I'm not picking up anything saying you shouldn't go on up, but be careful."

"Understood." Hifumi half-disappeared through the ceiling — and froze.

"Shade? Something wrong? Shadows?"

"Um, no, I don't think so…" She quickly climbed the rest of the way through — and then _Yusuke_ stalled out halfway through.

Futaba, wishing she hadn't insisted on bringing up the rear again, smacked him in the ankles. "Inari!"

"Apologies. It's just… well, you'll see."

She did see. They'd found the Treasure, which made sense. But…

"Hello," Futaba muttered. "That's not— Fox, you've been doing this longer than me, you ever seen this before?"

Instead of being an amorphous blob of light, the Treasure was — shifting. It was an elaborate reliquary — it was light — it was a laptop — light again — a wooden chest — no, a file cabinet — back to light — a massive stone altar — or was it a sarcophagus — or server hardware — light—

"No," Yusuke said. "Never. Before the calling card, strictly shapeless, and afterwards a single shape." He paused. "Yours was a little different, actually, but nothing like _this_."

"And we didn't _send_ a calling card…" How would they even do that, with Wakaba unconscious? "This is really weird."

The rest of the room was… well, it was _almost_ small enough to fit into the very top of the pagoda where it supposedly was. It wasn't quite the right shape, though. And it was decorated with an overwhelming mishmash of all three of the temple's… genres, with additional bits that looked like they might be Christian influence. Mayan hieroglyphs crawled up Greek columns; a stained-glass window displayed a mandala. Golden effigies with Greek robes and Buddhist poses held out actual, open-able books which mostly seemed to contain more equations. Brightly painted marble friezes depicted black jaguars frolicking with lion-dogs and Gallows Flowers. And there were small, ugly clay pots everywhere. 

"I think I'm getting a headache," Yusuke said. 

"It's not—" Futaba choked on 'it's not that bad', and instead allowed, "It is kind of… busy."

"…Just a bit."

Futaba grabbed the nearest little clay pot, which looked very smashable. "It wouldn't be as bad if the room was—"

The smashed pot splashed _fire_. 

Futaba did not _shriek_ , but she did make a sound of alarm when the fire splashed onto her feet — her boots deflected it adequately, but a nearby untidy pile of scrolls wasn't so lucky. Yusuke threw an ice spell at it before the fire could spread. 

"Okay, what the hell was _that_?" Futaba demanded, not expecting anyone to have an answer for her. 

"Greek fire?" Hifumi suggested, from across the room, where she'd wandered off. "Oracle, I found — something I think you should see."

"Coming—" Futaba tried to avoid coming too close to the hovering, shifting Treasure (—a pile of folders — a golden urn — a little cloud of USB drives — was it repeating _at all_?). Then she had to avoid a black glass mirror lying flat on on the floor not reflecting its actual surroundings. Then around a Greek-style statue holding a Mayan-style mask in front of its face— "Mom?!"

Possibly-her-mom was lying on an incense-shrouded altar, dressed in a hospital gown, unconscious. She was… very slightly transparent.

"Is this her or her Shadow?" Hifumi asked.

Yusuke had joined them. "I'm not sure, without being able to see her eyes. But I've never seen a Palace-owning Shadow act quite like that… but then I'm not sure what the alternative is exactly…"

Futaba could do better than that. She reached for Prometheus. "That is _Wakaba Isshiki's Consciousness_. So it's Mom, sort of, but I'm not sure how someone's _consciousness_ ends up in the Metaverse without their body, or how to send her back." She ventured a careful shoulder shake. "Mom? Mom! Wake up." Nothing. "Ugh, why won't she wake up _here_?"

"Maybe it's the incense," Yusuke suggested. "I just got here and I think it's making me sleepy."

"…Hmmm." Futaba looked at the eight lit incense-burners set around the altar where her mother lay, compared to none anywhere else in the room. (That she could see in the clutter at least.) "Yeah, worth a shot. How do you think we could put these—"

Prometheus cried a warming a split second before a very familiar voice snapped, "What are you doing in here?!"

Futaba spun.

The High Priestess's vestments included a very red robe under a pristine labcoat. Her yellow eyes gleamed, and she had the same 'Seriously Displeased' expression as the real Wakaba. She was carrying several more of the not-a-good-idea-to-smash pots.

She was also between them and the exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I didn't actually set out to have our two fire-vulnerable combatants take on a powerful opponent in a small cluttered room with jars of Greek fire all over the floor and yet somehow here we are...
> 
> Tune in next time to see if Yusuke and Hifumi can avoid getting set on fire and if Scedasticity can avoid stealing Wakaba's Treasure which I _specifically did not want to do_ but may have cornered myself into it being the only logical way forward... dammit.
> 
> [Northeast Guardian](http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Jikokuten).  
> [Southeast Guardian](http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Zouchouten).  
> [Southwest Guardian](http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Koumokuten).  
> [Northwest Guardian](http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Bishamonten).  
>  they're one-eighth turn counterclockwise from their correct positions...


	9. Asherah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am both very excited and very nervous about this chapter. :)

Her mother's Shadow wasted no time, but immediately blurred and distorted and dammit, they'd never been _ambushed_ by a _Palace ruler_ before—

"Get ready to defend!" Yusuke yelled to Hifumi. Dammit, she should have had him take the Snuff Soul after all—

"The floor!" Hifumi yelped.

From the safety of Prometheus, Futaba looked down. There were — tendrils, spreading across the floor, twining around the clutter. She didn't want to follow them back, but did anyway, to see them thicken and join into — roots.

_"You shouldn't be here!"_

Her mother's Shadow was a tree.

Or. An Ent. Except the Ents in the movies only acted like they had two arms and decorative branches, as opposed to _all the branches acting like arms_ , which really made more sense even though it was harder to fight, and really _most_ of the Shadows they'd fought had been more grotesque, this was _nothing_ really—

 _Asherah_ , Prometheus informed her. Strengths and weaknesses currently unknown. 

It still had her mother's face.

Below, both Yusuke and Hifumi had managed to get clear of the roots — Yusuke was standing on a plinth, Hifumi balancing on a stone lion-dog. Yusuke was adjusting one of his boots. The rootlets were waving up at them from the floor, but not achieving any elevation gains.

One of the higher branches trembled, then lowered, and shook, and then Yusuke and Hifumi were being hit with a volley of acorns that did gun damage. Not too bad, but… not negligible, either.

"No info on weaknesses yet, guys," she said anxiously. "Just… be careful?" She really didn't need to worry, it wasn't like anything they'd done to the Palace-ruling Shadows in monster form had hurt the people—

"Fox, try ice," Hifumi said. "I'm going to stick to my bow for now… getting in close enough for melee doesn't seem practical."

Futaba assessed the results. "Resists ranged weapons, but it's not doing _nothing_ … ice is connecting, but it's not a weakness." She'd thought ice might do more damage to a tree… but the weakness was probably fire. Not that _that_ did them any good. _Damn it_ , and Mona had _mentioned_ something about tools that did elemental damage, but Futaba didn't know anything more about them because Akira had never used any when she was around because he could just use whichever Persona was needed…

A different branch reached down, and out, and hit Yusuke with a melee attack which he managed to counter. The branch recoiled.

"How did you get all the way up here?" Asherah demanded.

"We climbed a lot of ladders," Hifumi said, and tried wind.

"Same as ice, neither a strength nor a weakness," Futaba reported.

Yusuke did more damage with a stronger spell. "I need the Snuff Soul to keep this up."

"Use it," Hifumi said. "I'd suggest running, but the exit…"

The exit was covered with a network of rootlets. Damn it.

"Who sent—" Asherah broke off. "Children. You're _children_!"

"I'm not a child," Hifumi said indignantly.

"How _dare_ they," Asherah said. Yet another branch came down, this one covered in flowers. _"This isn't right."_

If that wasn't a status effect in the making, Futaba didn't know what was. "Guys—"

The branch showered Yusuke in flowers, and— Sleep.

Of course he immediately toppled off the plinth onto a delicate sandalwood chest and crashed through to the floor, and _that_ woke him right up. Not in time to completely avoid the rootlets, though.

Hifumi managed to evade another cloud of flowers by jumping from the lion-dog to a stack of books to a creepily smiling statue. "Oracle? What's this now?"

"Sleep," Futaba said. "There's armor to resist sleep, but we don't have it, because _no one_ uses sleep, because you wake up the first time you get hit!" Or it could be fought with some kind of medicine they didn't have, or a healing technique which Futaba _might_ be able to get ready at the right moment— "Fox isn't hurt — more — he's just… a little tied up."

"Was that supposed to be funny." Yusuke was half-standing, leaning on the plinth, using his sword to cut himself loose from the rootlets twined around his boots, up nearly to his knees. "I don't think it was funny." The sword was obviously not the best tool for the job. Hifumi's naginata would be worse yet — hopefully she could continue avoiding getting caught…

"As soon as you're loose, Fox, agility buffs," Futaba said.

Hifumi got off another volley of arrows before she had to run from the flowers again — statue to reliquary to another lion-dog to Yusuke's plinth, to give him a hand up. "I'm not sure he shouldn't save his magic for the ice attacks, they're the only thing doing any meaningful damage!"

"Yes, but he's going to need agility to jump around avoiding the sleep attacks so he can _use_ the ice attacks!"

"I'm right here," Yusuke said mildly. He went with the agility buffs, and just in time — more flowers, and they had to run in opposite directions.

_"Stop fighting — I don't wish to hurt you!"_

"Sorry, Mom's Shadow," Futaba muttered, " _not_ gonna take your word for that."

The battle didn't improve from there, although not in the usual way. Asherah stuck to attacking with the sleep flowers, which it was easy to see coming and which could be evaded — assuming there was something other than the rootlet-covered floor to jump to. The most damage either of them took was when Hifumi slipped off an urn and landed on one of the smashable fire pots. She wasn't on fire for very long, thanks to Yusuke's questionable but effective use of an ice spell and _the Shadow using a recovery spell on her_ , but it put enough of a dent in her health that she had to use a remedy.

Asherah just wasn't taking much damage, either. A few windtorn twigs, some marks in the bark from arrows or bullets, an ice gouge or three — not _nothing_ — but it wasn't like they'd be able to keep this up indefinitely! Prometheus could do some magic restoration, but it _wasn't keeping up_!

"Say the word if you see a chance to get out, Shade," Futaba said finally. Running from a Palace-ruler fight felt all kinds of wrong, but it wasn't like they'd sent a calling card that would wear off.

"I've been looking," Hifumi replied tightly.

…Not good.

_"Stop fighting!"_

The first time Hifumi got hit with the sleep flowers, she managed to sort of drape herself over the statue whose plinth she was sharing and avoid falling to the floor — which was great as far as not being tied up by rootlets and having to try to cut her way loose with a naginata, but on the other hand the fall would have woken her up. It took Futaba several tries to muster a recovery spell to get rid of the sleep. In the meantime, Yusuke had the Shadow's complete attention and had to devote himself _completely_ to dodging — no counterattacks, no agility buffs, no arginade. He was running out of places to jump to when Futaba managed to get Hifumi awake to distract Asherah with another attack. From her dwindling ammunition supply.

Futaba had kind of been thinking they had until Yusuke ran out of magic to come up with something, but it was beginning to look like they'd be lucky to make it that long.

 _"How_ dare _they."_

…It was sort of infuriating, really. It would be one thing if the Shadow were beating them with more poison, but getting stomped with _sleep_? No one used sleep!

…Come to think of it, one of the branches held in reserve was dripping a nasty-looking sap that probably _was_ poison. Okay, never mind, she didn't _really_ want the Shadow to poison them.

_"You don't understand what's at stake here!"_

"You might be surprised," Yusuke gritted out.

It was the first time in a while either of the fighters had spared the breath to respond to the Shadow's raving. (It didn't sound anything like the Sphinx's raving, which was better for Futaba's nerves, anyway.)

Yusuke jumped from a Maya altar to a Nio's shoulders, and cast another agility buff at Hifumi. "Do _you_ know what's at stake here?"

"What are you doing, Fox?" Futaba asked, but not very loudly.

"If she's going to go on like we're ignorant children, it needs to be asked— Do you? Do you know what's at the bottom of Mementos?"

"She's not even going to know—"

"Of _course_ I don't," Asherah interrupted. "No one who goes down ever comes back."

Holy shit. "You know about Mementos?" Futaba demanded.

"Everyone knows about Mementos," Asherah replied, like it was obvious. "Or else they're deluding themselves. While there is a certain _ex nihilo_ nature to this state of existence, this manifestation is within a particular medium, which is in a way the origin point for both the substructures and the entities inhabiting them."

…Huh.

"…What does that mean?" Yusuke said.

The branch of sleep flowers snapped out, away from Yusuke entirely. Hifumi toppled bonelessly off the top of a two-meter stela into a thicker mat of rootlets which broke her fall and immediately snarled around her arms and legs and—

"It means," Asherah said, "that this is a very dangerous place and children should not be here."

 _Shit_.

"…That backfired," Yusuke said. "Apologies."

Futaba got Hifumi awake pretty quickly, this time, but it didn't _help_. Her legs were tied together with woody vines ankle to knee, and her arms bound to her sides. Forget cutting herself free with her naginata, she couldn't even _hold_ the naginata.

Prometheus didn't have anything for _untying people_.

Hifumi spit out the leaves that were trying to get into her mouth. "Oracle! Attack buff on Fox!"

 _Attack_ buff? Surely defense _or_ agility would be better—

—Yusuke was down to one more strong ice attack, or a couple of weak ones. But a physical attack with his Persona — that hit your health, not your magic, and he was just fine there.

It would just also put him in range of the flowers and the rootlets and anything else. Which would be fine if he defeated the Shadow, but if he didn't…

…But if he didn't attack, how much longer could he really keep evading?"

"Understood, Shade," Futaba rasped. "Fox, do you…?"

"Understood," Yusuke said. "Whenever…"

Futaba managed a Heat Riser, and Yusuke and Susano-o shot towards the Shadow.

A boosted Brave Blade did actual noticeable damage to Asherah—

—Roots were clawing at Yusuke's feet—

—A second strike made the branches shake—

—The flower branch was whipping around, so was the probably-poison branch—

—Yusuke saw them coming, he had to, but launched a third attack instead of evading—

—The rootlet network over the trapdoor actually started to unravel, and was Hifumi able to move a bit?—

—Asherah got Yusuke with poison _and_ sleep. In that order, because the poison might have woken him up. He dropped, Kamu Susano-o vanishing.

 _Fuck_.

Silence, except for the creaking of roots as they started tying Yusuke up, too.

Fuck fuck fuck. Futaba fumbled for poison recovery, for sleep recovery, but it was too late, he already didn't have any free hands, _why wasn't she prepared to deal with this kind of incapacitation_ —

The Shadow blurred from its monstrous Asherah form back to robes-and-labcoat High Priestess. Unfortunately, the roots and vines remained. She looked down at Yusuke, who was blinking dazedly, and tsked. "He did himself some real damage with those attacks… well, it will heal." She looked up at Prometheus. "You should come out of there."

"Yeah, no." The roots were dragging Hifumi across the room, too, to leave her next to Yusuke, among the book-holding statues. Position hack, could Futaba position hack their way out of this? No, that wasn't doing anything for the tied-up part—

"I really do not want to hurt you. Which is more than could be said for your employer."

"Employer—?" 'Who sent you', the Shadow had started to ask. And 'How dare they'. "Wait, no — we're not working for—" Futaba stopped herself from using Shido's name, then wasn't sure if she needed to. "We're not working for _anyone_. We came here on our own."

The Shadow looked skeptical. "How did you get in here then?"

"There's a phone app." The Shadow gave her the same look Wakaba had when Futaba had claimed studies showed MMOs were equivalent to having friends. "I know it's ridiculous, but there is. If you let Fox or Shade get their phone out… okay not Fox actually… they could show you." Now the Shadow was giving her the same look Wakaba had when Futaba had asked for her own credit card for online purchases. "Fine, don't. But that doesn't change that there _is_. And we aren't working for the people trying to steal your research."

"A phone app," the High Priestess said flatly. "And… why are you supposedly here, then."

Position hack wasn't working, emergency shift wasn't working, _nothing was working_ — Fine. Fine.

Futaba dropped out of Prometheus's protection — onto an altar, even though the floor _looked_ clear. She pushed her goggles up onto her forehead, and nodded at the altar holding _Wakaba's Consciousness_. "We're here for _you_ , Mom."

The High Priestess stared. "Futaba…? But I sent you… or… _Futaba_?"

"Yup. Actual, real-world Futaba here. Came to get my mom back. With the Metaverse phone app."

The High Priestess frowned, brow furrowing, and started fiddling with her glasses like Wakaba always did when she was thinking. "That's… you shouldn't be here, it's not _safe_ —"

"We can handle it," Futaba said firmly, as if both her party members weren't lying on the floor wrapped in roots. They'd handled everything _else_. "Do you at least believe we aren't working for the bad guys now?"

"Not knowingly," the High Priestess said. "That doesn't mean you aren't being manipulated." She sighed. "Well, it doesn't make any difference. I won't hurt you, you'll be safe in here for now, and I'll send you back to the real world right before I burn the temple. You'll be all right."

"Before you _destroy_ — That would kill you!" Futaba yelled. She waved towards the Wakaba on the altar. "That would kill _her_!"

The High Priestess just looked grim. "That's probably just as well. There are ways of extracting information… But what matters more than anything is _this_." She indicated the still-shifting Treasure. "I will not let them have it."

"You should have more faith in Mom's ability to keep secrets," Futaba said. "As for stealing the Treasure, how exactly do you think _they_ are going to get in here?"

"You're here," the High Priestess pointed out.

"Yes, because we used the app, which you didn't know about."

The High Priestess visibly hesitated. Then she walked away from the entrance, past the Treasure (a massive book — light — a golden chalice), past Yusuke and Hifumi tied up on the floor, to stand over the black glass mirror. "Come and see."

Futaba could have made it out the trapdoor, probably, if she'd abandoned the others. She didn't try. Instead, she hopped from altar to lion-dog to plinth to follow the Shadow and stand over the mirror. "In the mirror?" If you could call it that when it wasn't reflecting anything…

The High Priestess tapped a foot on the glass, and an image began to form. Orange-yellow light — stone walls — and a hovering patch of _wrong_ , like a hole in the world. 

Futaba squinted, which didn't help much, then tried not looking directly at the _wrong_ bit, which did. The walls had Mayan hieroglyphs. "Is this in the pyramid?" she asked. 

"Yes," the Shadow said. 

And sure enough, there were a couple temple guard Shadows, standing around the… thing… and _watching_ it. There was some stuff on the floor which didn't match the pyramid — metal pieces and — was that a length of computer cable? With that information in mind, the pieces of metal…

"Are those… are those destroyed _robots_?" With severed cables tangled on the floor, but mostly pointing back towards— "Are those destroyed robots which _came through that hole_?"

"Yes," the Shadow said again. 

Futaba took another try at looking directly at the hole. It felt like it was trying to squirm away. "Is that. Is that a hole out of the Metaverse." Or. More to the point. "A hole _into_ the Metaverse."

There was a muffled exclamation from Yusuke.

"Yes," the Shadow repeated. "A rift. It's been active intermittently for several months."

 _What_. No, freak later. Several months — since, say, November. "From the — this is from the lab? The lab made this?"

"Adapted it, really," the High Priestess said dispassionately. "The basic framework was declassified from some incident twenty years ago, they didn't tell us the details." She sighed heavily. "We would have been overjoyed, six months earlier. Even scanning was difficult with the previous infrastructure, and this…" She shook her head. "It's too much of a risk, now. But they'll lose access to this place when I destroy it, and without her they shouldn't be able to calibrate another one."

And Futaba could kind of see her point, except that wasn't a good enough reason to kill her mom, and also— " _Shouldn't_ be able? Not wouldn't? And why shouldn't, anyway, _shouldn't_ all your work have been documented?"

The High Priestess scowled. "I was the only one who could get it calibrated before."

"But how many other people tried, and for how long?" Futaba pushed.

The High Priestess looked away. 

"So they _could_ probably get it running again, even if this Palace was destroyed," Futaba said. "It would buy a little time, maybe. Nothing worth Mom's _life_." Actually— "And a… synthetic portal to the Metaverse is a really big deal, but I'm not sure how much they _need_ it, they've got— Shit." This was the _second time_ she'd only belatedly remembered Akechi in an _extremely relevant_ context. "Has there, have you seen an intruder with a black mask? With a… creepy stripy Persona? Has he been in here?" Probably not or the damn _Shadow_ would have deliberately gotten itself _killed_.

"We haven't successfully reproduced the controlled manifestation of externalized juxtego referred to in the reports—" 

Oh, for— "I'm not asking if Mom has seen it in the lab, I'm asking if you, the High Priestess, has seen it in the Metaverse?" Futaba knew she was swerving back and forth between acting like the Shadow was a version of her mom or a distinct entity, but in her defense, _so was the Shadow_. "You saw our Personas just now, have you seen any others?"

"There has been no such intruder sighted here," the High Priestess replied. "Only the raiders, and you, and _them_."

Raiders being the cognitions, Futaba and company, and… "By 'them' do you mean… do you mean the robots?" Please mean the robots—

"They don't come in often," the High Priestess said darkly. "They know how hard it is to get out." 

That… really kind of sounded like Wakaba's Palace had been eating her coworkers. Futaba's bug hadn't picked anything about _deaths_ at the labs, though, or even people going missing… She decided she wasn't touching it. "Okay… well… sounds like there's not much to worry about then…?"

"They'll _keep trying_ ," the Shadow hissed.

And if Shido got really serious about it, he had an actual proper expert, not that Futaba was going to mention that just now. "Well… what makes you think they're going to steal the Treasure anyway?"

"Why else would anyone plunder a temple?" the High Priestess asked. "I know what they want."

"Right…" To steal the research. The Treasure. Which her mom had been worried about for a while, and if she knew they could get into the Metaverse, and — did the real Wakaba know it was _her_ Palace they were getting into? The Shadow one did, obviously… hmmm… "Would you mind ungagging my friends?" Futaba asked flippantly. "I want to bounce ideas off them."

The High Priestess smiled indulgently. "It's good you have friends. Very well."

"What— You _will_?"

"I'm not untying them," the Shadow warned, but gestured, and some of the roots relaxed.

Hifumi was quicker to get her mouth clear. "You should really consider running, Oracle—"

"Even if I was willing to do that I don't think it would actually _help_ ," Futaba said. "Fox, were you listening? Do you think — she accidentally calling-carded _herself_?"

"…Sort of, at least. It's still not a… normal Treasure, but I suppose having materialized in such an unorthodox way…" Yusuke tried to crane his neck to take another look at the Treasure. "I'm not entirely certain it _could_ be stolen, in this form."

Neither was Futaba, but… "Also not certain it couldn't." Would its form settle if someone grabbed it, or would it keep changing? Could it be removed _while_ it was changing? "It'd probably turn into the actual research notes. Or something. Which we don't want them getting even if they already have some of it. But would they know to take it?" She paused, and then answered her own question. " _I'd_ know it was an attractive target, coming in blind. When everything is centered around protecting something, even if you don't know why…"

"I can hardly protect it _less_ ," the High Priestess broke in. "The only solution is to burn the temple."

"That is obviously untrue," Yusuke replied. "If for no other reason that the temple would be destroyed without killing you if you allowed us to take the Treasure. We could even destroy it afterwards, in the real world."

" _No_ ," said the High Priestess.

"I said I didn't want to steal her Treasure," Futaba said.

"I'm just pointing out that there _are_ options."

"Considering that it's such a weird Treasure, we don't even know if that would work right." Futaba turned to the Shadow. "How about this. You let us go, you let _Mom_ go, and we'll come back regularly to help you with any bad guys that show up?"

"Absolutely not."

"The Palace _can_ go away on its own," Futaba tried. "You just need to be… less obsessed." Right — in order to protect the research, become less obsessed with the research. That sounded like it would work great. "I can help Mom work on it. We'll… see a counselor." Yeah, she wasn't even convincing herself.

"No," the High Priestess said again. "I can see you're upset, but you'll be all right — Sojiro will take care of you. I know what I have to do."

"I don't think an _un_ controlled manifestation of externalized juxtego, whatever that's supposed to be, has any business making that decision," Futaba said. "What if… maybe the Palace could be _moved_. Mom's in the hospital now, not the labs, maybe…?" No, also unconvincing.

"You're wasting your time," the Shadow said.

"How did you get rid of your Palace in the future?" Hifumi asked. "With the weird Treasure?"

"Well, I sort of _was_ the Treasure—"

Futaba froze. Oh.

That might work.

She summoned Prometheus, ignored everyone's startled reaction, and used an anti-sleep recovery technique on _Wakaba's Consciousness_.

"What are you doing?" the Shadow demanded, alarmed.

Yusuke blinked several times, and answered Hifumi. "The Palace collapsed when she left, but… before that… she turned her Shadow into a Persona."

Wakaba — or her consciousness, whatever — sat bolt upright, knocking several of the incense burners to the floor, and stared around the room. Prometheus — the High Priestess — the _statues_ — from her angle she probably couldn't actually see Yusuke and Hifumi—

"What," she said, "the _fuck_."

Futaba failed to suppress a nervous giggle. It wasn't like she'd _never_ heard her mom swear before, but— She dropped back out of Prometheus, onto a lion-dog. "Mom. Hi. Let me explain."

"Futaba? What are you — where—"

"We're inside your Palace, which is what the lab's Metaverse portal was leading into. You're not really here physically, your Shadow just brought your consciousness here. That's your Shadow. Shadows — personal Shadows — are like… made of stuff you repress, or hide, or I don't know, they're weird, yours seems to be mostly focused on protecting the research over anything else, or almost anything else, like she's willing to kill both of you to do it—"

"You're—"

"Okay, yeah, me, should say something about that, I have a Persona, it's a really long story, so do my friends who are on the floor over here — okay, the Shadow knew right what a Persona was but I don't know if you do? A controlled externalized juxtego thingy. Anyway I figured your Palace might have something to do with your not waking up and hey! I was right! So we came looking for you, and your Shadow sort of kicked our asses, because _no one uses sleep_ , but we did figure out what was going on at least, and like I said your Shadow is planning to destroy the Palace and destroy itself and destroy you to protect the Treasure. The research."

" _Breathe_ , Futaba," Wakaba said.

Futaba obediently took a deep breath before continuing. "So since destroying the Palace _is_ probably a good idea, but killing you is _not_ on the table and we don't want to try to steal the Treasure, which is the usual way to collapse a Palace, we need you to turn your Shadow into a Persona." Okay. Okay. "Did I forget anything?"

"I… think you covered the most relevant material…" Hifumi said.

Yusuke coughed. "Except for _how_ she's meant to turn her Shadow into a Persona, but since we don't actually _know_ that…"

"Shut up, Fox."

"Or whether it's possible for an adult to have a Persona—"

"Queen was practically an adult, if she could do it — _and_ Mona—"

Support came from an unexpected quarter. "The psychological lability to synchronize with the cognitive dimension is believed to be more common in younger subjects, but not unique to them." The High Priestess had crossed her arms and was glaring at Wakaba, but she wasn't making any aggressive moves. "Conscious control requires adaptability. The most utility might come from a hypothetical 'blank slate', having structure but with minimal content."

"…She lost me on that last part, but I'm pretty sure she said it's possible for an adult to have a Persona."

Wakaba swung her legs off the side of the altar, and swept the remaining incense burners away. "That's— When did you get involved in all this, Futaba?I didn't think you knew…"

Futaba shrugged uncomfortably. "I didn't, really, last you knew… It's, uh, it's a long and implausible story. Time travel is involved. And eldritch horrors. _Really_ too long to get into now." Why did she mention the time travel?! She was as bad as Yusuke.

"And…" Wakaba stood, carefully, and started walking towards Futaba. "You're standing up there because…?"

"Watch the floor, there's a lot of broken stuff there," Futaba said anxiously. "Besides that, well, that also kind of ties back to the ass-kicking…"

Wakaba spotted Yusuke and Hifumi and her eyes widened. "I… see." She eyed the High Priestess. "Tying up kids?"

"Hey, if she's going to be tying people up, we are _worth_ tying up!" Futaba said quickly. "If Yusuke'd had a little more time, we could have taken her. Uh, her monster form. Shadows have monster forms. Some Shadows do."

"And he'd have half-killed himself in the process," the High Priestess said. "None of you should be here."

Hifumi started saying something about where they'd be otherwise, but Wakaba cut her off.

"Are you saying you didn't bring me here yourself?"

"I just couldn't have you getting into more trouble," the Shadow snapped. "You're not strong enough to do what's necessary. Deep down you know I'm right. You just keep pretending you can have it all — do what's right _and_ keep clinging to your own _selfish_ happiness. Pretend things will be all right if you just _stall_! That's not how this works! You're _weak_!"

Wakaba regarded the Shadow evenly. "I do know that."

"It's not selfish not to want to die!" Futaba said heatedly. "Not — just selfish. _I_ don't want her to die! You to die. And that's not weak — that's _strong_! You have to be stronger to live!"

"It's both," Wakaba said. "They're both strong. They're both weak. They both — are." She smiled faintly. "Flexible, remember."

"That's not very scientific," the High Priestess snapped.

"It's very cognitive. And black and white thinking is a very… _undergraduate_ approach to science."

 _Ouch_.

Despite having delivered an epic burn, Wakaba was walking carefully _towards_ the Shadow. "I still don't really understand what's going on," she said. "But I recognize that feeling that martyrdom is the only answer. Being ready to burn for what's right, because that will make it okay, what you've created. That will wash away opening that box."

Oh. "You didn't open the box, Mom," Futaba said softly. "It was going to open itself."

If Wakaba heard, she didn't react. "I know that feeling. I know you're a part of me, so I know _you_ know that the hardest answer isn't always the right one."

"What are you doing?" the High Priestess said, sounding alarmed.

" _Please_ don't turn into the sleep Ent again," Futaba muttered.

Wakaba held out a hand. "You're me. I'm you. I'm glad you've had the chance to express yourself, but it's time to come back now."

"No more stalling?" the Shadow asked. "No more pretending?"

"No, I think step one is going to be finding out what on Earth — or not — is going on."

Wait. Wait a minute. Futaba jumped off the lion-dog, grabbed a piece of one of the urns that had broken in the fight, and started sawing frantically at Yusuke's bonds. "How long from the Shadow disappearing to the Palace collapsing, if we don't touch the Treasure?" she demanded.

"I… have no idea…" Yusuke paled. "Get me another shard and I'll get my legs, you get Shade."

"All right," the Shadow said. "All right." She blurred, and there was light, coalescing into a mask in front of Wakaba's face—

"Hypatia," Wakaba breathed.

—And the hospital gown was changing, into maybe some sort of robe, and then she was disappearing, too — waking up, Futaba hoped, and—

The floor started shaking.

"Oh, shit."

Hifumi staggered to her feet. "I'll smash one of those windows," she said. "You summon Prometheus. We can hang on long enough to get to ground level."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the vein of Asmodeus, Azazel, etc.: [Asherah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah). Also [Hypatia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia), who doesn't so much fit the rebellion theme, but she is a grown-up.
> 
> I wasn't originally planning to have Wakaba get a Persona... but it seemed like the best solution.
> 
> If you want, you can come ask me questions on tumblr at [ceescedasticity](https://ceescedasticity.tumblr.com/)!


	10. Connectivity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm afraid this series is now two for two on stories with endings that feel abrupt but also feel like this is where and how they want to end. Sorry about that.

Yusuke was vocally unimpressed with the out the window/hang on to Prometheus strategy, but it did get them down to ground level and away in plenty of time! Far from the worst collapsing-Palace-exit they'd had. ( _Hopefully_ , the cruise ship would hold that spot for good.)

Back in the real world, they moved quickly away from the lab building, just in case the Palace collapsing had any _drastic_ effects on the portal. Only in the train station did they stop to regroup.

And check the time. Considering that they'd done quite a lot _before_ getting stuck in the boss battle unexpectedly, it wasn't as bad as it could have been — High School Futaba could still have been out, no problem. Middle School Futaba, not so much. From Yusuke and Hifumi's expressions they were feeling similarly.

"Okay, we'd better head back," Futaba said. "I'll message you guys tomorrow — or later tonight — as soon as I know what's going on."

As soon as the wired feeling wore off, she was going to be _exhausted_.

…Actually. Actually maybe she'd just head straight to the hospital. It was early enough that the nicer parts of Shinjuku were probably perfectly safe.

* * *

When Sojiro called, Futaba answered immediately. "Hello?"

"She's awake," Sojiro said immediately. "Awake and alert and… possibly a little disoriented, but she's going to be okay. Things will probably get crazy in the morning, so I'm going to come get you now—"

"I'm actually, uh, just walking into the main lobby," Futaba said.

"…What."

"Since I don't think it's visiting hours I'll probably still need you to come get me…"

Sojiro started swearing, not quite under his breath. "What the hell are you doing— Never mind. No, _later_. I'll be right there." He looked thoroughly exasperated when he showed up to get her a few minutes later. "Your mother said you might be on your way here, but I didn't think— Are you all right?"

"Just tired," Futaba said. It sounded like her mom remembered the Metaverse, which was… good? But complicating. "Is it safe to talk about… stuff?"

"Your mother convinced the night nurses to hold off on reporting she's woken up until morning, so we have a window." Sojiro looked slightly disgruntled. Irked that Wakaba had won over the nurses he'd alienated? "She was adamant you needed to be here for the discussion…"

"Yeah. It's, uh… it's cognitive psience stuff. And a long and implausible story."

He gave her a _look_ , but then they'd come to Wakaba's room. Her mom still looked pale, and weak, but she was _awake_ and sitting up and held out her arms. Futaba dove into them.

"I'm so glad you're all right," Wakaba said.

" _Mom_ ," Futaba said. She could feel the tears coming on, and tried to fight them back. "You're okay. I was so _scared_ — they tried to kill you and I couldn't do anything—"

"You did everything you needed to," Wakaba said soothingly. "…Although in a perfect world we would have the time to talk about bugging my phone."

Futaba considered giving Sojiro a reproachful look for tattling on her, but then again she'd showed up by herself after dark so maybe she shouldn't go there. "How are you feeling? Awakening a Persona _or_ losing a Palace can be really draining—"

"What?" Sojiro asked.

"It will probably catch up with me soon." Wakaba squeezed Futaba's hands. "Sojiro. What I couldn't tell you before is that we actually found a way to break into the cognitive dimension. Which is not how I got there—"

"— _Got there_ —"

"—But it is what makes the stakes in this game so much higher."

Except they'd killed Wakaba long before November in the original timeline. "Actually—"

"What I still don't have the full story of is how Futaba got involved so deeply — she and her friends helped me escape."

Sojiro put a hand over his eyes. "… _Bookstores_ , huh."

"Sorry," Futaba said. "I couldn't — you'd have wanted me to stop. And I couldn't stop. We're the only ones who can do this. Get into the Metaverse — the cognitive psience dimension — without the… portal thing they built. And it's really, _really_ a long and implausible story and time travel is involved—"

"What," Sojiro said.

Wakaba just patted her hand. "Try to sum up?"

Ugh. "Can't it wait?"

"We may not have another chance unsupervised soon," Wakaba said.

 _Ugh_. "Fine. Fine. But don't interrupt me." She took a deep breath. "Original timeline, they murdered Mom last summer by killing her Shadow, having their assassin Black Mask kill her Shadow, and faking a s-suicide." No more was needed about _that_. "I don't know what changed. After that they kept on doing mental shutdowns — killing people by killing their Shadows — and psychotic breakdowns to support the conspiracy. Not sure how much you know about the conspiracy, the guy at the center is," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "Masayoshi Shido." Sojiro started to say something — possibly an expletive — but Wakaba held up a hand to forestall him and Futaba plowed on.

"A little over a year from now, a — um — okay a bunch of high school students get this mystery Metaverse app I never got a good explanation for, and start falling into the Metaverse and awakening Personas. And they started fighting corruption using the Metaverse to change hearts and collapse Palaces. Which is what the… constructions that get built in the Metaverse are called. One of them — the Persona users — was staying in Leblanc — which is the coffeeshop Sojiro opened — so I snooped a bunch and recruited them to help me with some stuff," no need to say _what_ , "and joined the group so that was fine. The conspiracy tried to have us killed but we tricked them and went after," whisper again, "Shido, and stole his Treasure, too. But then things went wrong and we couldn't beat the monster at the bottom of Mementos — this giant Palace under the subways — and the Metaverse was leaking into Shibuya and we were disappearing and then we just — came back in time apparently. At least me and Inari did, and probably Mona. We don't know why."

Anything else? She'd left out _a lot_ of details they didn't need to know, but she'd hit the important parts, right? "I… I think that's it. The important parts. And some unimportant parts, but— That's it."

" _Hell_ , kid," Sojiro muttered. "That's… that's…"

"It's _true_."

"I'm not saying I don't believe you, just — _time travel_ —"

"I believe you," her mother said. "And I believe you're _right_ , which is… all this is going to take some more thinking about. Especially about… especially all of it." She laughed a little.

"You can't make us stop," Futaba said. That was her biggest concern, coming clean. "You _can't_. We have to stop Madarame — you've seen what a mess Inari is, Sojiro, and in the other future one of his senpai _died_ — and Hifumi's mother is getting worse, too, and there are so many others, and the conspiracy, and—" And they had to gets lots of experience to get strong enough to beat the thing at the bottom of Mementos, but she wasn't sure that was even _possible_ with strength alone. "You can't make _me_ stop, that'd— They need me, but without me they'll keep trying—"

"Do you think you could get them to wait?" Wakaba asked. "Long enough for me to be able to join you?"

"That, uh… probably depends on how long you want them to wait," Futaba said. She glanced at Sojiro, wondering how he'd feel about this surprisingly not-trying-to-forbid-it-forever position — he looked dubious but was staying quiet for the moment. "What are you… what are you planning on doing?"

Wakaba sighed. "Next I have to convince them that killing me or arresting me for drug possession would be more trouble than letting me quietly retire."

Sojiro rocked back on his heels. " _Now_ you're willing to retire? Before when I told you—"

"Knowing they're willing to kill people and _having them try to kill me_ aren't quite the same thing," Wakaba interrupted. "Besides, I… have a different perspective on a few things now. And some more productive avenues to explore." She looked up at Sojiro. "…I'm probably not going to be getting in any less trouble, though, Sojiro. It's not too late for you to get out of this mess."

"Wakaba… it is way, _way_ too late for me to get out of this mess," Sojiro sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

* * *

Futaba actually dropped off to sleep not very far into the discussion, leaning on her mother's shoulder. Embarrassing, even if it had been a very long day.

She dreamed of Akira and Leblanc again — this time, they were down in the cafe proper, sitting in one of the booths. "Get your uncle sorted out okay?" he asked.

"We kicked his _ass_ ," Futaba replied. "And that's just the start—"

Akira listened attentively to the whole story, commenting occasionally as appropriate. He hadn't known poison was a thing in the Metaverse, either. Hifumi's mother was concerning. Yusuke's senpai were hilarious. The 'Metaverse arm of Medjed' thing _might_ get the Mementos doors open? That was really more Morgana's area of expertise. But it was worth a shot.

He claimed to think Cognitive Sojiro would be an interesting challenge. She couldn't tell whether he was joking.

"Anyway, I'm impressed," Akira said finally. "I _said_ you were doing great."

"Yeah, well, I just hope Mom really knows how to get them to leave her alone now." Futaba grimaced. "And managing what to tell Mom is going to be _interesting_. Especially if we want to use Medjed to get the Mementos doors open, because then I'll have to _tell her about Medjed_ auugghhh…"

Akira was doing that thing where he laughed without actually laughing. "All this and that's what you're worried about?"

"Yeah, and I bet _you're_ just _overflowing_ with honesty—"

"Well, no, but I never remember a thing about the future after I wake up. Even the dreams are just bits and pieces."

Futaba froze. "Wait, what—?"

* * *

"Wake up, sweetheart."

 _Dammit_. Talk about lousy timing. Too late now. "Mmm, m'wake." Futaba raised her head. "What—"

Her mother's grip on her shoulder was a little tighter than she would have expected, though, and—

Suits. Men in dark suits standing around the room. She _eep_ ed.

"Sweetheart, can you go to the waiting room for a little while?" Wakaba said. "Sojiro and I need to talk to these people."

Futaba felt like a rabbit in the headlights. A completely innocent, ignorant kid would ask what was going on, right? Or would they be too intimidated by suits and— Was that a _cop_? "Mom?"

"It will be fine, Futaba. Really. We just need to talk about a few things. Don't worry. Just go hang out for a while."

So Futaba retreated to the waiting room, hoping Wakaba had this under as much control as she thought she did. 

There didn't seem to be any additional suspicious people in the waiting room. Futaba sat down. Pulled out her phone. It was still a little early for a Sunday, but not _early_ early…

**Group Chat:**

FI: it worked!  
FI: shes awake  
HT: Yes!  
YK: I'm so glad  
FI: and seems to remember everything  
YK: …  
FI: yeah pretty much  
FI: she wants us to wait to go back to the metaverse until she can come too  
FI: i said i couldnt make promises for you guys and it depended on how long  
HT: What IS our next Metaverse goal?  
HT: The museum?  
YK: Or following up on some of the things the Shadow said, I was thinking  
FI: yeah…  
FI: im not sure HOW but this lab stuff…  
FI: we really might be better off waiting for mom for that?  
FI: im not sure where wed even start…  
YK: You have a point  
YK: And if collapsing the temple destroyed their only active portal whatever they are doing should be set back  
HT: It seems like we could still do the museum in the meantime, though  
FI: hmm, true  
FI: gotta think some more  
HT: …  
HT: Out of curiosity, how did you get to the hospital so early?  
FI: just came straight here last night  
FI: just as well, got to talk to her before the creepy suit guys showed up in the morning  
YK: !  
YK: Is this a problem?  
FI: mom seems to think she and sojiro have it under control  
FI: or will have it under control  
FI: i really hope so  
YK: I see  
YK: Let us know if we can help in any way  
FI: will do  
FI: …  
FI: you guys are awake kinda early, too, considering how insane yesterday was  
HT: Yes, but as far as anyone else in my family knows, I went to bed early.  
FI: …  
FI: inari please have a non concerning reason  
YK: Hitoshi-senpai is feeling inspired again and has decided that in honor of Kiyomi-senpai's exam success he is going to bake a cake while she is touring the university campus today  
HT: My reason is nothing to be concerned about!  
YK: He has never baked a cake before but has found instructions on the internet  
YK: I am helping  
FI: …  
FI: are you two going to burn down the shack?  
YK: Not on purpose  
HT: That can't possibly be less concerning  
FI: …  
FI: well if you do mom will probably let you three stay at our place again  
FI: but hifumi has a point  
FI: okay the creepy suit guys are slithering out  
FI: and sojiros waving at me to come back  
FI: he only looks a little grumpy i think things are okay

* * *

Sojiro and Wakaba were both annoyingly evasive on how exactly they'd gotten the goons to back off — but in more of an exasperated or embarrassed way than a worried way, Futaba thought, so she let it go for the moment. The official story was… underwhelming.

"I explained that I didn't remember taking any drugs, and would maintain that in any sort of inquiry, but in the absence of such I am going to prioritize my health and my family," Wakaba explained.

Futaba chewed on her lip. "And that… they're… that's…" She had no idea what she wanted to say. "If they're okay with that, then why—" Why even try to kill her?

"Because _I_ wouldn't have been okay with that," Wakaba replied. "…And Sojiro promised to, ah, _keep me out of trouble_ if they left us alone."

Futaba wondered if Sojiro had ever successfully kept anyone out of trouble. Not that she was complaining at all!

"So we're going to go stay with him, when I get out of here," her mother continued. "I hope that's okay."

"Yongen-Jaya?" Futaba asked hopefully.

"How— Of course. Yes, in Yongen-Jaya." Wakaba smiled crookedly. "He's seeing about leaving his current job now, but I'm not sure if he remembers what you said about the coffeeshop, it went by so fast."

"Leblanc is destiny," Futaba intoned. "You'll like it there, Mom, it's nice."

"And once I'm out of here I can meet your friends properly!" Her mother smiled again. "Fox and Shade — I assume Fox would be Inari, and Shade is… Mona, was it?"

She snorted. "No, Mona's — a really long story, and we haven't actually talked to him, we're just pretty sure he left a note." She'd have to explain what note, eventually. "Shade is Hifumi, we knew her — well, friend-of-a-friend sort of knew her — but she didn't come back with us. …And Fox is Inari but his real name is Yusuke." Futaba hesitated — she didn't want to outright mention the Metaverse when nurses and stuff were around, but— "His teacher really is _extremely_ awful, Mom. He steals all his students' art and if they turn on him he sabotages their future careers. That's — one of the things I don't want to take too long to take care of."

"He steals— Okay, I think I'm going to need the whole story about that. …Once I'm home."

* * *

Futaba spent a lot of the next week in the hospital, though Wakaba insisted that she go to school and go home to sleep, shower, et cetera, and if she didn't have anything else to do she could start to think about moving? Ugh. The group chat was fairly active. Yusuke and Hitoshi had not burned down the shack, but they had destroyed a baking pan and discovered that neither of them nor Madarame knew off the top of their heads where Kiyomi had installed the smoke detector. Hifumi's mother was seething and/or sulking and not speaking to her much, but might be softening a little? At any rate Hifumi had several pleasant informal shogi games, so that was something.

Then on Friday on the way home Sojiro picked up Big Bang Burger for dinner, and _oh right_.

Okumura Foods. Something something business shakeup something.

As soon as she was back at home — at the apartment, home-for-now — she dove for her computers.

Okay. Okumura Foods was still dealing with the aftermath of a _crisis_ , brought on in June when President Okumura… ordered across-the-board pay raises and increased spending on workplace safety?

Unsourced gossip claimed that he kept _crying about his past wrongdoings_?

 _Huh_.

* * *

alibaba: hello  
HO: FUTABA??!!!  
alibaba: yes!  
alibaba: you do remember!  
alibaba: i thought it looked like your dad had a change of heart but i wasnt sure…  
HO: Yes! Last June?  
alibaba: yeah i didnt remember anything then  
alibaba: or not enough anyway  
alibaba: and i guess inari wasnt paying attention  
HO: Yusuke remembers too?  
HO: Makoto doesn't.  
HO: Neither does Akechi, though I wouldn't have expected him to  
alibaba: youve talked to him?  
HO: Well, I approached him to blackmail him for the MetaNav, but then I accidentally recruited him before Shido could, so he's on our side now  
alibaba: …  
HO: It was awkward to start with and he's still a bit ethically challenged, and I cannot convince him the psychotic breakdowns are worse than changes of heart, but THIS Goro hasn't killed anyone and he's getting better at letting himself care about people! I've been very proud of him actually  
HO: I hope it won't be a problem  
HO: Futaba?  
alibaba: yeah  
alibaba: awkward but ill deal  
alibaba: im just kicking myself because we almost ran into him in mementos in december but ran like hell to avoid him and have been staying out ever since  
alibaba: and it sounds like if we HAD run into him he just would have told you and  
alibaba: we could have done with the help  
HO: That sounds very ominous.  
alibaba: well it turned out ok but it could have been bad  
alibaba: also if shido never had akechi it explains a lot of why things have been different…  
HO: !  
HO: Your mother?  
alibaba: shes okay!  
alibaba: its a REALLY long story though  
HO: I look forward to hearing it!  
HO: I'm so glad to hear from you — when Mako-chan didn't remember I assumed it was just me!  
alibaba: thats what inari assumed too after ann didnt recognize him  
alibaba: but with what happened with me — they might not remember YET  
alibaba: this time travel thing is so confusing  
alibaba: im going to see if mom has any ideas  
HO: …  
HO: I understand with the cognitive psience she knows something about the Metaverse, but you told your mother about the time travel?  
alibaba: it sort of slipped out  
HO: …  
alibaba: also sojiro  
HO: …  
alibaba: and hifumi togo, remember her? that was inari tho  
alibaba: and then he accidentally dumped both of them in the metaverse with a magic painting, go figure, and she got a persona  
HO: …  
alibaba: and he has these two fellow students who know about the metaverse but NOT the time travel  
HO: …  
HO: So your team is you and Yusuke and Hifumi Togo?  
alibaba: yeah  
alibaba: or  
alibaba: it has been but  
alibaba: see  
alibaba: about my mom  
HO: …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that concludes _Escher_ , in which Futaba saves her mom and _keeps secrets as well as could be expected under the circumstances, okay?!_
> 
> The series will continue in the hopefully not-too-distant future with _Echoes in the Void_ , in which Goro doesn't remember anything (except some truly weird dreams), and which will cover what the COMC crew has been up to between the end of that story and now so I guess I should figure that out.


End file.
